eing a Frenchman, was the first to come to
his use of his tongue.

"_Mon dieu_! Monsieur, this is no bedroom for the gentleman. It is
forbidden to sleep all night in the _salle a manger_."

"Silence, Gustav! Go for a policeman," said Armstrong in a tone so
strange that the faithful Gustav slunk away like a dog with his tail
between his legs.

"Now, sir!" said the tutor as the door closed.

The wretch made one wild effort at escape. He might have known by this
time with whom he had to deal. Mr Armstrong held him by the wrist as
in a vice.

"It won't do, Ratman," said he. "The game is up. The best thing you
can do is to stand quietly here till the police come."

The prisoner sullenly abandoned his struggle, and turned with a bitter
sneer to Roger.

"So you've run me down, have you? You've found your lost brother at
last? I expected it. I was a fool to suppose you would lift a finger
for me. There's some chance of escaping from an enemy, but from a
brother who has set himself to hound a brother to death, never. Never
mind. Your money's safe now. Have me hung as soon as you like; the
sooner the better for me."

Roger, stupefied and stung to the quick by these taunts, winced as
though he and not the speaker were the miscreant. He looked almost
appealingly at his accuser, and tried to speak to justify himself, but
the words refused to come.

Suddenly he seemed to detect in the prisoner's eye some new sinister
purpose.

"Take care, Armstrong; take care!" he cried, and flung himself between
the two.

It was not an instant too soon. With his free hand Ratman had contrived
while talking to reach unheeded a pocket, from which he suddenly whipped
a pistol, and, pounding on his captor, fired.

The shot was badly and wildly aimed at the tutor's face. Even at so
short a distance it might have missed its mark altogether. Roger's
sudden intervention, however, found it an unexpected target. The lad's
up-flung hand caught the pistol at the moment it went off, and received
in its palm the ball which had been intended for his friend.

The sight of this untoward accident completely unnerved the prisoner.
He sullenly let the weapon drop from his fingers, and with the air of a
gambler who has played and lost his last stake, sank listlessly on the
sofa on which not ten minutes before he had been sleeping.

"Luck's against me," he said with an oath. "Look to the boy; I shan't
trouble you any more. I've don