gnizing that for some reason I set great store on this
questionable privilege,--I do not think that he suspected in the
least what that reason was,--and being, as I have intimated,
favorably disposed to me, he exerted himself to such good effect
that I was formally detailed to assist in keeping watch over the
premises that very night.

I think that it was at this point I began to reckon on the success
which, after many failures and some mischances, was yet to reward
my efforts.

As I prepared to enter the old house at nightfall, I allowed myself
one short glance across the way to see if my approach had been
observed by the man whose secret, if secret he had, I was laying
plans to surprise. I was met by a sight I had not expected. Pausing
on the pavement in front of me stood a handsome elderly gentleman
whose appearance was so fashionable and thoroughly up to date, that
I should have failed to recognize him if my glance had not taken in
at the same instant the figure of Rudge crouching obstinately on the
edge of the curb where he had evidently posted himself in distinct
refusal to come any farther. In vain his master,--for the
well-dressed man before me was no less a personage than the whilom
butt of all the boys between the Capitol and the Treasury
building,--signaled and commanded him to cross to his side; nothing
could induce the mastiff to budge from that quarter of the street
where he felt himself safe.

Mr. Moore, glorying in the prospect of unlimited wealth, presented
a startling contrast in more ways than one to the poverty-stricken
old man whose curious garb and lonely habits had made him an object
of ridicule to half the town. I own that I was half amused and
half awed by the condescending bow with which he greeted my offhand
nod and the affable way in which he remarked:

"You are making use of your prerogatives as a member of the police,
I see."

The words came as easily from his lips as if his practice in
affability had been of the very longest.

"I wonder how the old place enjoys its present distinction," he
went on, running his eye over the dilapidated walls under which we
stood, with very evident pride in their vast proportions and the air
of gloomy grandeur which signalized them. "If it partakes in the
slightest degree of the feelings of its owner, I can vouch for its
impatience at the free use which is made of its time-worn rooms and
halls. Are these intrusions necessary? Now that Mrs. Je