etween him and the brute. I heard it swish up,
and saw it half turn with gaping jaws. In that moment I lived over my
life again, with all its folly and crime, and for the first time for
years I prayed. How it happened I cannot tell; the shark must either
have made a bad shot at me or else I must have ducked instinctively, for
I remember feeling the scrape of his fin across my cheek and being
pushed aside by his great tail. Next moment my mate's hands let go
their grip of me and there was a yell such as I pray I may never hear
again. When at last they hauled me on board I was not the same man who
three minutes before had dived into the water. That was the scene your
picture reminded me of, Miss Oliphant. You have told me one of your
troubles, and I have told you one of mine, which makes us quits. But my
horse is getting fidgety down there; I must look after him. Good-bye."

Mr Armstrong was a little surprised, when he came to go through the
accounts with his co-trustee that afternoon, to find that he must have
been mistaken in his previous supposition that they were not all correct
and straightforward. Everything appeared quite plain and properly
accounted for, and he agreed with the figures, rather abashed to feel
that, after all, he was not as acute a man of business as he had
flattered himself. Mr Pottinger and the captain rallied him about his
deserted mares'-nest, and bored him with invitations to go through all
the items again, to give him a chance of proving them wrong. He
declined with thanks, and signed the balance with the best grace he
could summon.

"Odd," said he to himself, as he strode home after the interview;
"either you must be very clever or I must be very stupid. I should
greatly like to know which it is."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

MR. RATMAN VISITS HIS PROPERTY.

"Dear Armstrong," wrote Roger from London about a week after the tutor's
return to Maxfield, "you will be surprised to hear I am just off to
Paris to look for a Mr Pantalzar. This is how it comes about. Long
Street does not exist, as I told you, nor any trace of the family
Callot. But old Directories are still available, and in one of these I
found that fifteen years ago there was a Long Street, and that Number 2
was then occupied by a person of the uncommon name I have mentioned.
The name seemed too promising a one to be let drop; so I tracked it down
to the year before last, when I found a Pantalzar was proprietor of a