While the amanuensis was puzzling his brains
over the mystic sense of this communication, the
master, satisfied with the performance, neither
asked for name, nor position in life, nor
testimonial of morality, nor certificate of vaccination,
but triumphantly installed him in his
office.

"All you will have to do," he added, "is to
put into passable French the reports that will
be brought to you."

These reports, hurriedly written on the knee,
upon scraps of paper of every shade and shape,
put the secretary's imagination upon the rack.
Here is one as a sample:

"Madame opened her window at nine in the morning;
from half-past eight the party had been pacing
backwards and forwards in the street like a sentinel.
—We followed him without attracting notice.—
Madame changed the rose-bush from her side
window; then the party waved his handkerchief and
went away.

"Madame went out at eleven o'clock—went into
a linen shop; we looked at her through the
embroidered muslins displayed in the window.—The
shopwoman gave her a letter; she read it and
returned it, probably to avoid compromising herself;—
she left, and went in the direction of the Rue Saint-
Honoré.

"She entered the Church of Saint-Roch; we
followed her up to the spot where to-day, Holy
Thursday, they washed the feet of the poor.—The
party was waiting at the grand altar; they went
out together, and took the hackney carriage No. 482.

"I lost sight of them.

"I ran as quick as possible to take my place
close to the customs officers at the Barrière de
l'Etoile. No. 482 passed an instant afterwards; I
followed the carriage, holding on behind; it stopped
at a house in Auteuil. The carriage went away; I
waited till night to no purpose; I found out too late
that the house had two entrances."

On the margin of the report, and in red ink,
figured these words by the master: "Imbecile,
not to try the portfolio trick."

This secretary only remained a fortnight.

It is therefore clear that Vidocq, in his latter
days, had remedied some of the defects of his
early want of education, so as to render himself
independent of literary help from others; and it
is probable that, at all times, he could dictate
with clearness and ability. The letter in our
correspondent's possession is fluently and not
inelegantly written. The hand is unusually good
for France; and it is nearly free from
orthographical error, which is a still greater rarity
in that country. Bad spelling stares you in the
face from the most unsuspected quarters and in
the most unexpected places. At Stork-street,
Dieppe, the word Cigogne was, and may be still,
spelt with an S. There is not much exaggeration
in Paul de Kock's joke of the painter who,
being paid by the letter, always spelled Epicier,
grocer, with two p's, two c's, and a t at the end.

That Vidocq also eventually arrived at a
certain degree of outward polish, follows from his
first having penetrated the great world in
disguise, and latterly being received by persons
belonging to good society. The hard names
he applies to scoundrels no greater than himself,
belong simply to the part he had undertaken
to act. We should smile, if we did not feel
disgusted, when he sets himself up as a lecturer on
morality; for the kind which he practised in the
exercise of his functions would not suit the taste
of everybody. It is of no use his talking about
his duties; very few people would like to do
their duty by the employment of similar means.
Even when we read his own proper narratives,
we hardly ever feel interested for him, but for
those whom we are inclined to call his victims.
Some of these stories (that of Henriette,
for instance) make the reader's cheek burn
with indignation. He died, like a second-
rate saint, with all the sacraments of the
Romish Church. The Lord have mercy on his
soul! But out of the ten thousand individuals
whom he sent to the hulks during his eighteen
years of office, it is probable that there were
not two who were capable of such odious
treachery.

TOM IN SPIRITS.

IT was no extraordinary thing, some two
hundred years ago, for the Evil Spirit to have
direct and personal intercourse with mankind.
All the witch trials turned on this, the
corner-stone of demonology; and devils as goblin
pages, familiars, changeling children, and demon
lovers, were to be found wherever there was
physical deformity or mental weakness.
Indeed, anything unusual in mind or body was
sure to be referred to demoniacal influence, and
even a sudden change of fortune did not escape
the universal charge. The Devil did everything.
If a man got drunk and dreamed drunken dreams,
the devil had carried him off bodily to such
and such a place, and showed him in the flesh
what his mind alone had fancied; if a man
had fits, he was possessed; if a young maid
were hysterical, she was bewitched; if an old
woman were spiteful, cunning, ugly, or eccentric,
she was a witch, and must suffer the
doom of witchcraft; if a child were fanciful,
lying, or mischievous, the whole country
must be up and astir to discover its
persecutor, and if none in human form could be
decided on, then it was the devil himself who
was in fault, and prayer and exorcism must
drive him forth.

As for devils haunting houses, they were as
common as rats and mice; which undesirable
animals indeed often figured in people's imaginations
as possessed of hoofs and claws, tail, fiery
eyes, and polished horns; according to the most
reliable portraits given of those subterrene
personages. There was the drummer demon of
Tedworth, who plagued Mr. Mompesson and his family
out of their senses; and there was the Demon of
Woodstock—a royalist devil—who harried the
Parliamentary Commissioners to within an inch
of their lives, and never ceased until he had
harried them clean out of the place; and there
was the Devil of Glenluce—a controversial devil,