be, as this young person appeared to
admit; and almost equally so, Monsieur Derville, if, as I more than
suspect, the conclusion indicated by the expression that has escaped
you should be the true one.'

The banker's voice appeared to break the spell that enchained the
faculties of Derville. He rose up, encountered the stern looks of the
men by one as fierce as theirs, and said hoarsely: 'I withdraw the
accusation! The young woman's story is a fabrication. I--I lent, gave
the fellow the note myself.'

A storm of execration--'_Coquin! voleur! scelerat!_' burst forth at
this confession, received by Derville with a defiant scowl, as he
stalked out of the apartment.

I do not know that any law-proceedings were afterwards taken against
him for defamation of character. Hector kept the note, as indeed he
had a good right to do, and Monsieur and Madams Bertrand are still
prosperous and respected inhabitants of Rouen, from which city
Derville disappeared very soon after the incidents just related.

CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS.

'On the day that our preamble was proved, we had all a famous dinner
at three guineas a head--never saw such a splendid set-out in my life!
each of us had a printed bill of fare laid beside his plate; and I
brought it home as quite a curiosity in the way of eating!' Such was
the account lately given us by a railway projector of that memorable
year of frenzy, 1845. A party of committee-men, agents, engineers, and
solicitors, had, in their exuberance of cash, dined at a cost of some
sixty guineas--a trifle added to the general bill of charges, and of
course not worth thinking of by the shareholders.

These days of dining at three guineas a head for the good of railway
undertakings are pretty well gone; and agents and counsel may well
sigh over the recollection of doings probably never to return.

'The truth is, we were all mad in those times,' added the individual
who owned so candidly to the three-guinea dinner. And this is the only
feasible way of accounting for the wild speculations of seven years
ago. There was a universal craze. All hastened to be rich on the
convenient principle of overreaching their neighbours. There was
robbery throughout. Engineers, landholders, law-agents, and jobbers,
pocketed their respective booties, and it is needless to say who were
left to suffer.

Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is
somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have onl