incompetent. They tell me he has had some education."

Herr Ulrich raised his spectacles, and surveyed me from head to foot for
some seconds. "You have been in the yard?" said he, in question.

"Yes, sir."

"And is counting oaken staves the first step to learning foreign
exchanges, think you?"

"I should say not, sir."

"I know whose scheme this is, well enough," muttered he. "I see it all.
That will do. You may leave us to talk together alone," said he to the
cashier. "Sit down there, lad; there 's your own famous newspaper, the
'Times.' Make me a _precis_ of the money article as it touches Austrian
securities and Austrian enterprises; contrast the report there given
with what that French paper contains; and don't leave till it be
finished." He returned to his high stool as he spoke, and resumed his
work. On the table before me lay a mass of newspapers in different
languages; and I sat down to examine them with the very vaguest notion
of what was expected of me.

Determined to do something,--whatever that something might be,--I
opened the "Times" to find out the money article; but, little versed in
journalism, I turned from page to page without discovering it. At last
I thought I should find it by carefully scanning the columns; and so
I began at the top and read the various headings, which happened to be
those of the trials then going on. There was a cause of salvage on the
part of the owners of the "Lively Jane;" there was a disputed ownership
of certain dock warrants for indigo, a breach of promise case, and
a suit for damages for injuries incurred on the rail. None of these,
certainly, were financial articles. At the head of the next column I
read: "Court of Probate and Divorce,--Mr. Spanks moved that the decree
_nisi_, in the suit of Cleremont v. Cleremont, be made absolute. Motion
allowed. The damages in this suit against Sir Roger Norcott have been
fixed at eight thousand five hundred pounds."

From these lines I could not turn my eyes. They revealed nothing, it
is true, but what I knew well must happen; but there is that in a
confirmation of a fact brought suddenly before us, that always awakens
deep reflection: and now I brought up before my mind my poor mother,
deserted and forsaken, and my father, ruined in character, and perhaps
in fortune.

I had made repeated attempts to find out my mother's address, but all
my letters had failed to reach her. Could there be any chance of
discovering her through