stance."

"Bolted, by all that's clever!" said the second personage to the first,
who looked very much surprised and confounded.

"You really have astonished me, my dear sir," replied the first person,
whom the reader will of course recognise to be Furness; "that a lad
brought up by me in such strict moral principles, such correct notions
of right and wrong, and, I may add, such pious feelings, should have
taken such a step, is to me incomprehensible. Major McShane, I think
you said, lives at ---?"

"Major McShane lives at Number --- in Holborn," replied the
schoolmaster.

"And the lad has not gone home to him?"

"No, he has not; he left a letter, which I took to Major McShane; but I
did not break the seal, and am ignorant of its contents."

"I really am stupefied with grief and vexation," replied Furness, "and
will not intrude any longer. Bless the poor boy! what can have come of
him?"

So saying, Furness took his departure with the peace-officer, whom he
had intrusted with the warrant, which he had taken out to secure the
person of our hero.

McShane heard the schoolmaster's account of this visit without
interruption, and then said, "I have no doubt but that this person who
has called upon you will pay me a visit; oblige me, therefore, by
describing his person particularly, so that I may know him at first
sight."

The schoolmaster gave a most accurate description of Furness, and then
took his leave.

As the eating-house kept by Mrs McShane had a private door, Furness
(who, as McShane had prophesied, came the next afternoon), after having
read the name on the private door, which was not on the eating-house,
which went by the name of the Chequers, imagined that it was an
establishment apart, and thought it advisable to enter into it, and
ascertain a little about Major McShane before he called upon him.
Although McShane seldom made his appearance in the room appropriated for
the dinners, it so happened that he was standing at the door when
Furness entered and sat down in a box, calling for the bill of fare, and
ordering a plate of beef and cabbage. McShane recognised him by the
description given of him immediately, and resolved to make his
acquaintance incognito, and ascertain what his intentions were; he
therefore took his seat in the same box, and winking to one of the girls
who attended, also called for a plate of beef and cabbage. Furness, who
was anxious to pump any one he might fall in with, immed