rn. Shall I get your stall for you, and so save time?"

"Yes, by all means, thank you. Are you alone, Stanton?"

"Quite alone. I'd almost forgotten what the theatre was like, and
determined to come and refresh my memory."

"I'm by myself, too. Say, old man, would it be a liberty if I asked you
to try and get stalls for us together?"

"Delighted, I'm sure," I answered, though, as a matter of fact, I was
not quite certain whether I was telling the truth or not. Farnham had
been well enough in Denver, but I did not know whether I should care to
pass in his society a whole evening, which I had meant to be one of
solitary enjoyment. However, he had left me nothing else to say, and I
responded with what alacrity I could, little dreaming that my whole
future was hanging on my words, and the result of my confab with the man
in the box-office.

The play was a popular one, and perhaps on no night of the year, save
Christmas Eve or some Lenten fast, could we have obtained two stalls
side by side a few minutes before the ringing-up of the curtain. As it
was, we were successful, and I walked into the theatre by the side of
the tall, thin, smooth-faced American.

We sat down, in the third or fourth row of the stalls, and, as the
orchestra had not yet come in, began to talk.

Farnham explained to me that he had "run over" to England on business,
intending to sell a certain mine of his, which, though vastly
profitable, was the one thing in which he had lost interest. The other
mines in which he was part owner were situated in his own state,
Colorado, while this particular one, the "Miss Cunningham," was in
California, and he was tired of journeying to and fro.

"I've had a good offer," he said; "indeed, I'm visiting in the house of
the man who has made it--a wonderful fellow, only one degree less
interesting, perhaps, than you. His name is Carson Wildred. Did you ever
hear of him?"

"No," I answered, though possibly not to know Mr. Carson Wildred was to
argue myself unknown.

"He seems to have plenty of money," explained Farnham, "and though he's
a newcomer in London, has got in with a number of good people. He has
two houses, one in Sloane Street and one up the Thames, a queer, lonely
old place, near Purley Lock, if you know where that is. I'm staying out
there with him now, as it happens, though I can't say I'm as fond of the
river as he is at this season. But when a few papers and a good round
sum of money have changed h