own requirements!"

"Fiddlestick!" said Davis, angrily, as he pushed his glass from before
him; then, after a moment, went on: "Do you start early, so as to be
back here before evening,--my mind is running on it. There's three
naps," said he, placing the gold pieces on the table. "You'll not want
more."

"Strange magnetism is the touch of gold to one's palm," said Classon,
as he surveyed the money in the hollow of his hand. "How marvellous
that these bits of stamped metal should appeal so forcibly to my inner
consciousness!"

"Don't get drunk with them, that's all," said Davis, with a
stern savagery of manner, as he arose from his seat. "There's my
passport,--you may have to show it at the office. And now, good-bye, for
I have a long letter to write to my daughter."

Classon poured the last of the Burgundy into a tumbler, and drank it
off, and hiccuping out, "I'll haste me to the Capitol!" left the room.

CHAPTER VI. IMMINENT TIDINGS

It was a very wearisome day to Davis as he waited for the return of
Paul Classon. Grog's was not a mind made for small suspicions or petty
distrusts,--he was a wholesale dealer in iniquity, and despised minute
rogueries; yet he was not altogether devoid of anxiety as hour, by hour
went over, and no sign of Classon. He tried to pass the time in
his usual mode. He shot with the pistol, he fenced, he whipped the
trout-stream, he went over his "martingale" with the cards, but somehow
everything went amiss with him. He only hit the bull's-eye once in three
shots; he fenced wide; a pike carried off his tackle; and, worst of all,
he detected a flaw in the great "Cabal," that, if not remediable, must
render it valueless.

"A genuine Friday, this!" muttered he, as he sauntered up a little
eminence, from which a view might be had of the road for above a mile.
"And what nonsense it is people saying they 're not superstitions!
I suppose I have as little of that kind of humbug about me as my
neighbors; yet I would n't play half-crowns at blind-hookey today. I'd
not take the favorite even against a chance horse. I'd not back myself
to leap that drain yonder; and why? Just because I 'm in what the French
call _guignon_. There's no other word for it that ever I heard. These
are the days Fortune says to a man, 'Shut up, and don't book a bet!'
It's a wise fellow takes the warning. I know it so well that I always
prepare for a run against me, and as sure as I am here, I feel that
something or