ow, stained with tears, blotted with emotion; et
cetera, et cetera. Here, in Numbers Five and Six, are my own personal
subscriptions to local charities, actually paid in remunerative
neighborhoods, on the principle of throwing a sprat to catch a herring;
also, my diary of each day's proceedings, my personal reflections and
remarks, my statement of existing difficulties (such as the difficulty
of finding myself T. W. K. in this interesting city); my outgivings and
incomings; wind and weather; politics and public events; fluctuations in
my own health; fluctuations in Mrs. Wragge's head; fluctuations in our
means and meals, our payments, prospects, and principles; et cetera,
et cetera. So, my dear girl, the Swindler's Mill goes. So you see me
exactly as I am. You knew, before I met you, that I lived on my wits.
Well! have I, or have I not, shown you that I have wits to live on?"

"I have no doubt you have done yourself full justice," said Magdalen,
quietly.

"I am not at all exhausted," continued the captain. "I can go on, if
necessary, for t he rest of the evening.--However, if I have do ne
myself full justice, perhaps I may leave the remaining points in
my character to develop themselves at future opportunities. For
the present, I withdraw myself from notice. Exit Wragge. And now to
business! Permit me to inquire what effect I have produced on your own
mind? Do you still believe that the Rogue who has trusted you with all
his secrets is a Rogue who is bent on taking a mean advantage of a fair
relative?"

"I will wait a little," Magdalen rejoined, "before I answer that
question. When I came down to tea, you told me you had been employing
your mind for my benefit. May I ask how?"

"By all means," said Captain Wragge. "You shall have the net result
of the whole mental process. Said process ranges over the present and
future proceedings of your disconsolate friends, and of the lawyers
who are helping them to find you. Their present proceedings are, in all
probability, assuming the following form: the lawyer's clerk has given
you up at Mr. Huxtable's, and has also, by this time, given you up,
after careful inquiry, at all the hotels. His last chance is that you
may send for your box to the cloak-room--you don't send for it--and
there the clerk is to-night (thanks to Captain Wragge and Rosemary Lane)
at the end of his resources. He will forthwith communicate that fact to
his employers in London; and those employers (don't