ou
found!" He ended by winking again with the friendliest drollery.

He turned his back to the boy, and opened the note; continuing to stand
in that position while he read the two messages. It struck the messenger
that, after this, there need be no great shame in his own lack of this
much-vaunted art of reading, since it took so famous a man as Mr. Carewe
such length of time to peruse a little note. But perhaps the great
gentleman was ill, for it appeared to the boy that he lurched several
times, once so far that he would have gone over if he had not saved
himself by a lucky stagger. And once, except for the fact that the face
that had turned away had worn an expression of such genial humor, the
boy would have believed that from it issued a sound like the gnashing of
teeth.

But when it was turned to him again, it bore the same amiable jocosity
of mouth and eye, and nothing seemed to be the matter, except that those
fingers still shook so wildly, too wildly, indeed, to restore the note
to its envelope.

"There," said Mr. Carewe, "put it back, laddie, put it back yourself.
Take it to the gentleman who sent you. I see he's even disguised his
hand a trifle-ha! ha!--and I suppose he may not have expected the young
lady to write his name quite so boldly on the envelope! What do you
suppose?"

"I d'know," returned the boy. "I reckon I don't hardly understand."

"No, of course not," said Mr. Carewe, laughing rather madly. "Ha, ha,
ha! Of course you wouldn't. And how much did he give you?"

"Yay!" cried the other, joyously. "Didn't he go and hand me a dollar!"

"How much will you take not to tell him that I stopped you and read it;
how much not to speak of me at all?"

"What?"

"It's a foolish kind of joke, nothing more. I'll give you five dollars
never to tell anyone that you saw me today."

"Don't shoot, Colonel," exclaimed the youth, with a riotous fling of
bare feet in the air, "I'll come down!"

"You'll do it?"

"Five!" he shouted, dancing upon the boards. "Five! I'll cross my heart
to die I never hear tell of you, or ever knew they was sich a man in the
world!"

Carewe bent over him. "No! Say: 'God strike me dead and condemn me
eternally to the everlasting flames of hell if I ever tell!"

This entailed quick sobriety, though only benevolence was in the face
above him. The jig-step stopped, and the boy pondered, frightened.

"Have I got to say that?"

Mr. Carewe produced a bank-bill about which the boy