has been in familiar converse with a person of title, or a small
trader on being brought into unexpected connection with a merchant
prince. The gigantic character of the "operation" had invested this
young man with an increased interest in the stranger's eye.

"That's a great beginning," said he, admiringly, "and could scarcely
have happened with a poor devil like me. One requires to be born a
gentleman to have such opportunities. Now, I don't mind telling _you_"
here he sank his voice to a whisper, and looked cautiously about him,
"that I was forty years of age before I ever got such a haul as yours.
I've done better since, but it's been up-hill work, for all that."

"It doesn't seem to have been very hard work," said Richard, with a
meaning glance at the other's hand.

"Well, no, I can't say as it's been hard; a neat touch is what is wanted
in my profession."

"Why, you're not a pick--" Richard hesitated from motives of delicacy.

"A pickpocket? Well, I hope not, Sir, indeed," interrupted the other,
indignantly.

"Then what _are_ you?" said Richard, bluntly.

As a coy maiden blushes and hangs her head in silence when asked the
question which she is yet both proud and pleased to answer in the
affirmative, so did Mr. Robert Balfour (for such was the name of our new
acquaintance) pause and in graceful confusion rub his stubble chin with
his closed fist ere he replied: "Well, the fact is, I have been in the
gold and precious stone line these thirty years, and never in the
provinces until this present summer, when I came down here, as a Yankee
pal of mine once put it, 'to open a little jewelry store.'"

"With a crowbar?" suggested Richard, with a faint smile.

"Just so," said the other, nodding; "and it so happened that yours
truly, Bob Balfour, was caught in the very act."

"And what term of punishment do you expect for such a--"

"Such a misfortune as that?" answered Mr. Balfour, hastening to relieve
Richard's embarrassment. "Well, if I had got the swag, I
should--considering the testimonials that will be handed in--have been a
lifer. But since I did not realize so much as a weddin' _ring_, twenty
years ought to see me through it now."

Twenty years! Why, this man would be over seventy before he regained his
liberty!

"Great Heaven!" cried Richard, "can you be cheerful with such a future
before you! and at the end of it, to be turned old and penniless into
the wide world!"

A genuine pity showed itself