lers' shops--in the hope of buying the play. Nobody knew anything
about it. Nobody could tell me whether it was the original work of an
Italian writer, or whether it had been stolen (and probably disfigured)
from the French. As a fragment I had seen it. As a fragment it has
remained from that time to this.

SECOND EPOCH.

ONE of my objects in writing these lines is to vindicate the character
of an innocent woman (formerly in my service as housekeeper) who has
been cruelly slandered. Absorbed in the pursuit of my purpose, it has
only now occurred to me that strangers may desire to know something more
than they know now of myself and my friend. "Give us some idea," they
may say, "of what sort of persons you are, if you wish to interest us at
the outset of your story."

A most reasonable suggestion, I admit. Unfortunately, I am not the right
man to comply with it.

In the first place, I cannot pretend to pronounce judgment on my own
character. In the second place, I am incapable of writing impartially
of my friend. At the imminent risk of his own life, Rothsay rescued me
from a dreadful death by accident, when we were at college together. Who
can expect me to speak of his faults? I am not even capable of seeing
them.

Under these embarrassing circumstances--and not forgetting, at the same
time, that a servant's opinion of his master and his master's friends
may generally be trusted not to err on the favorable side--I am tempted
to call my valet as a witness to character.

I slept badly on our first night at Rome; and I happened to be awake
while the man was talking of us confidentially in the courtyard of
the hotel--just under my bedroom window. Here, to the best of my
recollection, is a faithful report of what he said to some friend among
the servants who understood English:

"My master's well connected, you must know--though he's only plain Mr.
Lepel. His uncle's the great lawyer, Lord Lepel; and his late father was
a banker. Rich, did you say? I should think he _was_ rich--and be hanged
to him! No, not married, and not likely to be. Owns he was forty last
birthday; a regular old bachelor. Not a bad sort, taking him altogether.
The worst of him is, he is one of the most indiscreet persons I ever
met with. Does the queerest things, when the whim takes him, and doesn't
care what other people think of it. They say the Lepels have all got a
slate loose in the upper story. Oh, no; not a very old family--I mean,
nothi