ion from the abandoned swindler, with
an Austrian stamp and a Vienna post-mark.

"MY DEAR VANDRIFT.--(After so long and so varied an acquaintance
we may surely drop the absurd formalities of 'Sir Charles' and
'Colonel.') I write to ask you a delicate question. Can you kindly
tell me exactly how much I have received from your various generous
acts during the last three years? I have mislaid my account-book,
and as this is the season for making the income tax return, I am
anxious, as an honest and conscientious citizen, to set down my
average profits out of you for the triennial period. For reasons
which you will amply understand, I do not this time give my private
address, in Paris or elsewhere; but if you will kindly advertise
the total amount, above the signature 'Peter Simple,' in the Agony
Column of the Times, you will confer a great favour upon the
Revenue Commissioners, and also upon your constant friend and
companion, CUTHBERT CLAY,

"Practical Socialist."

"Mark my word, Sey," Charles said, laying the letter down, "in a
week or less the man himself will follow. This is his cunning way
of trying to make me think he's well out of the country and far
away from Seldon. That means he's meditating another descent. But
he told us too much last time, when he was Medhurst the detective.
He gave us some hints about disguises and their unmasking that I
shall not forget. This turn I shall be even with him."

On Saturday of that week, in effect, we were walking along the road
that leads into the village, when we met a gentlemanly-looking man,
in a rough and rather happy-go-lucky brown tweed suit, who had the
air of a tourist. He was middle-aged, and of middle height; he wore
a small leather wallet suspended round his shoulder; and he was
peering about at the rocks in a suspicious manner. Something in
his gait attracted our attention.

"Good-morning," he said, looking up as we passed; and Charles
muttered a somewhat surly inarticulate, "Good-morning."

We went on without saying more. "Well, _that's_ not Colonel Clay,
anyhow," I said, as we got out of earshot. "For he accosted us
first; and you may remember it's one of the Colonel's most marked
peculiarities that, like the model child, he never speaks till he's
spoken to--never begins an acquaintance. He always waits till we
make the first advance; he doesn't go out of his way to cheat us;
he loiters about till we ask him to do it."

"Seymour," my brother-in-law r