ield? Glad you've looked me up at last,' said the
Irishman, as if a midnight call were the most natural thing in the
world. 'Just come from the House?'

'No; I've just come from Westmoreland. I thought I should find you among
those everlasting books of yours, late as it is. Can I have a few words
alone with you?'

'Certainly. Morgan, you can go away for a bit.'

'Home, sir?'

'Home--well--yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I should have
been glad to finish the chapter on Beetroot Sugar to-night--but it may
stand over for the morning. Be sure you're early.'

'Yes, sir,' the clerk responded with a faint sigh.

He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded for his
shorthand services; and yet he wished the great Fitzpatrick had not been
quite so industrious.

'Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you?' asked Fitzpatrick, when
the clerk had gone. 'I can see by your face that you've something
serious in hand. Can I help you?'

'You can, I believe, in a very material way. You were five-and-twenty
years in Spanish America?'

'Rather more than less.'

'Here, there, and everywhere?'

'Yes; there is _not_ a city in South America that I have not lived
in--for something between a day and a year.'

'You know something about most men of any mark in that part of the
world, I conclude?'

'It was my business to know men of all kinds. I had my mission from the
Spanish Government. I was engaged to examine the condition of commerce
throughout the colony, the working of protection as against free trade,
and so on. Strange, by-the-bye, that Cuba, the last place to foster the
slave trade, was of all spots of the earth the first to carry free-trade
principles into practical effect, long before they were recognised in
any European country.'

'Strange to me that you should speak of Cuba so soon after my coming
in,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'I am here to ask you to help me to find
out the antecedents of a man who hails from that island.'

'I ought to know something about him, whoever he is,' replied Mr.
Fitzpatrick, briskly. 'I spent six months in Cuba not very long before
my return to England. Cuba is one of my freshest memories; and I have a
pretty tight memory for facts, names and figures. Never could remember
two lines of poetry in my life.'

'Did you ever hear of, or meet with, a man called Montesma--Gomez de
Montesma?'

'Couldn't have stopped a month in Havana without hearing something about
t