t ten last evening."

"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how all this prolix
account of your amours can possibly concern me."

"You are at least somewhat involved in the deplorable climax," Mr.
Sheridan returned. "For behold! at two in the morning I discover the
object of my adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate, most
calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling my supply of cravats.
If ever any lover was thrust into a more ambiguous position, madam,
historians have touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."

He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to his visitor's brow.
And then, "I must concede that appearances are against me, Mr.
Sheridan," the beautiful intruder said. "And I hasten to protest that
my presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by no unworthy
motive. I merely came to steal the famous diamond which you brought
from London--the Honor of Eiran."

"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's answer, "that stone is
now part of a brooch which was this afternoon returned to my cousin's,
the Earl of Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose. He intends the gem
which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery to be the adornment
of his promised bride in the ensuing June. I confess to no
overwhelming admiration as concerns this raucous if meritorious young
person; and will even concede that the thought of her becoming my
kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no less attributable to
the discord of her features than to the source of her eligibility to
disfigure the peerage--that being her father's lucrative transactions
in Pork, which I find indigestible in any form."

"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried. "That jewel was stolen from
the temple at Moorshedabad, by the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during
the confusion necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of Plassy."
She laid down the pistol, and resumed in milder tones: "From an
age-long existence as the left eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into
the loot of an invader. To restore this diamond to its lawful,
although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired proprietors is
at this date impossible. But, oh! what claim have you to its
possession?"

"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian; "and to contend as much
would be the apex of unreason. For this diamond belongs, of course, to
my cousin the Earl of Eiran----"

"As a thief's legacy!" She spoke with signs of irr