crony, the only man whose
skill and influence could save him, was absent in Europe. It was the end
of everything. He must either resign himself to prison stripes or blow
his brains out.

Affairs had reached this crisis in the Marsh household when late one
evening a messenger boy brought to West Seventy-second Street the
following cablegram:

"New York office notifies me Richard Marsh died suddenly in
Pittsburg yesterday. Am returning on the next steamer.

"BASCOM COOLEY."

CHAPTER II.

"No--no, my boy--this is on me!" protested Mr. Cooley, drawing a wad of
money from his vest pocket and carelessly tossing a hundred-franc note
across the counter.

While the cockney bartender of the English Tavern in the Champs Elysees
counted out the change, Tod, with an unsteady hand, raised to his lips
the glass of foaming, sparkling _Clicquot_.

"Here's to Uncle Dick--bless him!"

"Amen!" responded Mr. Cooley fervently.

The regular frequenters of the place, jockeys, bookmakers, racing touts,
and other persons of dubious appearance and pursuits who make up that
queer riffraff of British sporting characters always found drifting
about the French metropolis, either flush after recent winnings at
Longchamps or out at elbow from an extraordinary run of ill luck--all
these worthies nudged each other and grinned as they watched the two
Americans. There was no doubt in everyone's mind as to the nationality
of the strangers. Only Yankees could afford the luxury of opening
"fizz" so early in the day. What the onlookers did not know, of course,
was that an event of exceptional importance had brought the two
Americans together on this particular morning and that Tod Chase and
Bascom Cooley, the well-known New York lawyer, were celebrating an
auspicious event by "setting 'em up." Otherwise there would be little
excuse for loitering in the small, stuffy barroom, with its pungent odor
of stale beer and atmosphere thick with tobacco smoke, when the call of
the beautiful world without was so strong.

It was a glorious Spring morning, one of those perfect days when Paris,
decked in her loveliest raiment, is seen at her best. Under the shade of
the fine oak trees lining the entire length of the noble avenue were
dozens of buxom _nou-nous_, attractive in their neat caps and long
streamer ribbons. They sat knitting and gossiping while their daintily
dressed charges, happy and healthy, romped noisily in the bright
sunshi