ico, upon himself
departing, while every woolly-head was uncovered, and the whole
assembled "property" had groaned "Amen" together.

That was patriarchal life; what was this? Freckle thought this much
finer and higher. He had not asked himself if it was better. He was
rather ashamed of his father now, and anxious to be a dashing gentleman,
like Plade or Pisgah.

Why did he play whist so badly? How chanced it that, having dwelt
eighteen months in Paris, he could speak no French? His only _grisette_
had both robbed him and been false to him. He knew that the Colony
tolerated him, merely. Was he indeed verdant, as they had said--obtuse,
stupid, lacking wit?

After all, he repeated to himself, what had the Colony done for him? He
had not now twenty francs to his name, and was a thousand francs in
debt; he had essayed to study medicine, but balked at the first lesson.
Yet, though these suggestions, rather than convictions, occurred to him,
they stirred no latent ambition. If he had ever known one high
resolution, the Southern Colony had pulled it up, and sown the place
with salt.

So he reached Master Lees' tenement; it was a long ascent, and toward
the last stages perilous; the stairs had a fashion of curving round
unexpectedly and bending against jambs and blank walls. He was quite out
of breath when he staggered against Lees' door and burst it open.

The light fell almost glaringly upon the bare, contracted chamber; for
this was next to the sky and close up to the clouds, and the window
looked toward the west, where the sun, sinking majestically, was
throwing its brightest smiles upon Paris, as it bade adieu.

And there, upon his tossed, neglected bed, in the full blaze of the
sunset, his sharp, sallow jaws dropped upon his neck, his cheeks
colorless and concave, his great eyes open wide and his hair unsmoothed,
Master Lees lay dead, with the roulette table upon his breast!

* * * * *

When Freckle had raised himself from the platform at the base of the
first flight of stairs, down which he had fallen in his fright, he
hastened to his own chamber and gave the Colony notice of the depletion
of its number.

A deep gloom, as may be surmised, fell upon all. Lees had been no great
favorite of late, and it had been the trite remark for a year that he
was looking like death; but at this juncture the tidings came ominously
enough. One member, at least, of the Southern Colony would never s