use free born;
teachers are slaves!"

Pisistratus (unconsciously imitating Mr. Trevanion).--"Stuff!"

Stranger (looks angry, and then laughs).--"Very true; stilts don't suit
shoes like these! But I cannot teach. Heaven help those I should teach!
Anything else?"

Pisistratus.--"Anything else!--you leave me a wide margin. You know
French thoroughly,--to write as well as speak? That is much. Give me
some address where I can find you,--or will you call on me?"

Stranger.--"No! Any evening at dusk I will meet you. I have no address
to give, and I cannot show these rags at another man's door."

Pisistratus.--"At nine in the evening, then, and here in the Strand,
on Thursday next. I may then have found some thing that will suit you.
Meanwhile--" slides his purse into the Stranger's hand. N. B.--Purse not
very full.

Stranger, with the air of one conferring a favor, pockets the purse; and
there is something so striking in the very absence of all emotion at so
accidental a rescue from starvation that Pisistratus exclaims,--

"I don't know why I should have taken this fancy to you, Mr. Dare-devil,
if that be the name that pleases you best. The wood you are made of
seems cross-grained, and full of knots; and yet, in the hands of a
skilful carver, I think it would be worth much."

Stranger (startled).--"Do you? Do you? None, I believe, ever thought
that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could
make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken
this fancy to me,--the strong sympathize with the strong. You, too,
could subdue fortune!"

Pisistratus.--"Stop! If so, if there is congeniality between us, then
liking should be reciprocal. Come, say that; for half my chance of
helping you is in my power to touch your heart."

Stranger (evidently softened).--"If I were as great a rogue as I ought
to be, my answer would be easy enough. As it is, I delay it. Adieu.--On
Thursday."

Stranger vanishes in the labyrinth of alleys round Leicester Square.

CHAPTER III.

On my return to the Lamb, I found that my uncle was in a soft sleep; and
after a morning visit from the surgeon, and his assurance that the
fever was fast subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I thought it
necessary to go back to Trevanion's house and explain the reason for
my night's absence. But the family had not returned from the country.
Trevanion himself came up for a few hours in the afternoon, and seemed