ber who comes here in search of death, like yourself,"
replied the paralytic, "returns every evening until fortune favours him.
He can even, if he is penniless, get board and lodging from the
President: very fair, I believe, and clean, although, of course, not
luxurious; that could hardly be, considering the exiguity (if I may so
express myself) of the subscription. And then the President's company is
a delicacy in itself."

"Indeed!" cried Geraldine, "he had not greatly prepossessed me."

"Ah!" said Mr. Malthus, "you do not know the man: the drollest fellow!
What stories! What cynicism! He knows life to admiration, and, between
ourselves, is probably the most corrupt rogue in Christendom."

"And he also," asked the Colonel, "is a permanency--like yourself, if I
may say so without offence?"

"Indeed, he is a permanency in a very different sense from me," replied
Mr. Malthus. "I have been graciously spared, but I must go at last. Now
he never plays. He shuffles and deals for the club, and makes the
necessary arrangements. That man, my dear Mr. Hammersmith, is the very
soul of ingenuity. For three years he has pursued in London his useful
and, I think I may add, his artistic calling; and not so much as a
whisper of suspicion has been once aroused. I believe himself to be
inspired. You doubtless remember the celebrated case, six months ago,
of the gentleman who was accidentally poisoned in a chemist's shop? That
was one of the least rich, one of the least racy, of his notions; but
then, how simple! and how safe!"

"You astound me," said the Colonel. "Was that unfortunate gentleman one
of the----" He was about to say "victims"; but bethinking himself in
time, he substituted--"members of the club?"

In the same flash of thought it occurred to him that Mr. Malthus himself
had not at all spoken in the tone of one who is in love with death; and
he added hurriedly--

"But I perceive I am still in the dark. You speak of shuffling and
dealing; pray, for what end? And since you seem rather unwilling to die
than otherwise, I must own that I cannot conceive what brings you here
at all."

"You say truly that you are in the dark," replied Mr. Malthus with more
animation. "Why, my dear sir, this club is the temple of intoxication.
If my enfeebled health could support the excitement more often, you may
depend upon it I should be more often here. It requires all the sense of
duty engendered by a long habit of ill-health and caref