a stable, where Mike kept his horses on
the nights of his arrival. Two trips a week were all that he could
accomplish, but the winter was so long, and he was so industrious, that
before the ice broke up, everything for the construction of the house
had been delivered, even to the bricks for the chimney, the lime for the
plastering, and the last clapboard and shingle. The planning, the
chaffing, the merry stories of which Number Nine was the scene that
winter, the grand, absorbing interest in the enterprise in which these
three men were engaged, it would be pleasant to recount, but they may
safely be left to the reader's imagination. What was Sam Yates doing?

He lived up to the letter of his instructions. Finding himself in the
possession of an assured livelihood, respectably dressed and engaged in
steady employment, his appetite for drink loosened its cruel hold upon
him, and he was once more in possession of himself. All the week long he
was busy in visiting hospitals, alms-houses and lunatic asylums, and in
examining their records and the mortuary records of the city. Sometimes
he presented himself at the doors of public institutions as a
philanthropist, preparing by personal inspection for writing some book,
or getting statistics, or establishing an institution on behalf of a
public benefactor. Sometimes he went in the character of a lawyer, in
search of a man who had fallen heir to a fortune. He had always a
plausible story to tell, and found no difficulty in obtaining an
entrance at all the doors to which his inquisition led him. He was
treated everywhere so courteously that his self-respect was wonderfully
nourished, and he began to feel as if it were possible for him to become
a man again.

On every Saturday night, according to Mr. Belcher's command, he made his
appearance in the little basement-room of the grand residence, where he
was first presented to the reader. On these occasions he always brought
a clean record of what he had done during the week, which he read to Mr.
Belcher, and then passed into that gentleman's hands, to be filed away
and preserved. On every visit, too, he was made to feel that he was a
slave. As his self-respect rose from week to week, the coarse and brutal
treatment of the proprietor was increased. Mr. Belcher feared that the
man was getting above his business, and that, as the time approached
when he might need something very different from these harmless
investigations, his instr