er we had reached New
York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim--a ghastly creature, my dear,
all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury--looks
askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a
friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam
Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of
what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my
hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant
of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In
fact--it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many
days--it was with the assistance of a small loan from me that he was
enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short
conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that
apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At
this time of the year, I knew, many wealthy people go south, to Florida
and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant
apartment in his building. There was. I took it."

"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place
like that?"

Uncle Chris coughed.

"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might
say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours
received and wishing to do me a good turn, consented to become my
accomplice in another--er--innocent deception. I gave my friends the
address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while
myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive
character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up
on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my
servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.
If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw
in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful
simplicity."

"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"

"Conscience never made me give up _anything_," said Uncle Chris
firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything
going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have
been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the
place is that the working-classes are in a constant state of flux. On
Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On