ost
harassing hours of my life were occasioned me by him. But I shall not
cherish enmity on that account. With so promising a beginning, he will
graduate and take his degree from the loftiest altitude in his line.
Hemp is a narcotic; let it bring me forgetfulness.

In Paris I found it not difficult to trace such a person, since he was
both foreign and unaccustomed. It was ascertained that he had posted
several letters. A person of his description had been seen to drop a
letter, the superscription of which had been read by the one who picked
it up for him. This superscription was the address of the very person
who was likely to be the agent of the former possessors of the diamond,
and had attracted attention. After all,--you know the Secret Force,--it
was not so impossible to imagine what this letter contained, despite
of its cipher. Such a person also had been met among the Jews, and at
certain shops whose reputation was not of the clearest. He had called
once or twice on Mme. de St. Cyr, on business relative to a vineyard
adjoining her chateau in the Gironde, which she had sold to a
wine-merchant of England. I found a zest in the affair, as I pursued it.

We were now fairly at sea, but before long I found we were likely to
remain there; in fact, nothing of consequence eventuated. I began to
regret having taken the affair from the hands in which I had found it,
and one day, it being a gala or some insatiable saint's day, I was
riding, perplexed with that and other matters, and paying small
attention to the passing crowd. I was vexed and mortified, and had fully
decided to throw up the whole,--on such hairs do things hang,--when,
suddenly turning a corner, my bridle-reins became entangled in the
snaffle of another rider. I loosened them abstractedly, and not till it
was necessary to bow to my strange antagonist, on parting, did I glance
up. The person before me was evidently not accustomed to play the dandy;
he wore his clothes ill, sat his horse worse, and was uneasy in the
saddle. The unmistakable air of the _gamin_ was apparent beneath the
superficies of the gentleman. Conspicuous on his costume, and wound like
an order of merit upon his breast, glittered a chain, _the_ chain,--each
tiny brick-like gem spiked with a hundred sparks, and building a fabric
of sturdy probabilities with the celerity of the genii in constructing
Aladdin's palace. There, a cable to haul up the treasure, was the
chain;--where was the diamond