n genius, and could have managed everybody's
affairs except his own. I heard of all this with pleasure--(people say I
hear everything)--when one day a sporting man seizes me by the button
at Tattersall's--'Do you know the news? Will Losely is in prison on a
charge; of robbing his employer.'"

"Robbing! incredible!" exclaimed Lionel.

"My dear Lionel, it was after hearing that news that I established as
invariable my grand maxim, _Nil admirari_--never to be astonished at
anything!"

"But of course he was innocent?"

"On the contrary, he confessed,--was committed; pleaded guilty, and
was transported! People who knew Willy said that Gunston ought to have
declined to drag him before a magistrate, or, at the subsequent trial,
have abstained from giving evidence against him; that Willy had been
till then a faithful steward; the whole proceeds of the estate lead
passed through his hands; he might, in transactions for timber, have
cheated undetected to twice the amount of the alleged robbery; it must
have been a momentary aberration of reason; the rich man should have let
him off. But I side with the rich man. His last belief in his species
was annihilated. He must have been inexorable. He could never be amused,
never be interested again. He was inexorable and--vindictive."

"But what were the facts?--what was the evidence?"

"Very little came out on the trial; because, in pleading guilty, the
court had merely to consider the evidence which had sufficed to commit
him. The trial was scarcely noticed in the London papers. William Losely
was not like a man known about town. His fame was confined to those who
resorted to old-fashioned country-houses, chiefly single men, for the
sake of sport. But stay. I felt such an interest in the case, that I
made an abstract or praecis, not only of all that appeared, but all
that I could learn of its leading circumstances. 'Tis a habit of mine,
whenever any of my acquaintances embroil themselves with the Crown--"
The Colonel rose, unlocked a small glazed bookcase, selected from the
contents a MS. volume, reseated himself, turning the pages, found the
place sought, and reading from it, resumed his narrative. "One evening
Mr. Gunston came to William Losely's private apartment. Losely had two
or three rooms appropriated to himself in one side of the house; which
was built in a quadrangle round a courtyard. When Losely opened his door
to Mr. Gunston's knock, it struck Mr. Gunston that his man