notes from the hand of M. Torn Krantz, head
of the respected firm of Krantz and Co., and
being asked where, was obliged to own that it
was at Nyeborg ferry, whither he had followed
me on "urgent private affairs."

This lame explanation was treated with very
natural contempt. I was bullied, browbeaten,
and urged to confess that I was an accomplice
of a certain notorious gang of foreign escrocs
then infesting Denmark, whose audacity was
well known. Unfortunately, I could furnish
no proofs of my respectability, for my papers
were all on board the Emma, even the vouchers,
&c., having been left with Paul Krantz, in a
sealed envelope, to be given to Captain Brown
at his next visit. The telegraph was not yet in
existence between Copenhagen and Kiel. I had
no help for it but to go to prison, and to prison
I went. Bitter and melancholy enough my
reflections were during the five ensuing days.
Danish prisons, like all else in Denmark, are
clean and neat, and I was not harshly treated,
but I met with no sympathy. The magistrates
who examined me, the jailers, the chaplain, the
very English sub whom I teased by repeated
letters to the British Consulate and Legation
into paying me a reluctant visit, all believed me
a scoundrel of the deepest dye, and took my
unvarnished tale for a clumsy invention. I
wrote urgently both to the Krantz family and to
Captain Brown, but had received no reply when
the day for my trial arrived.

"You will be put to the bar along with your
captain, it seems," said the turnkey, as he
summoned me to come forth, as the judges were
awaiting me.

"My captain?"

"I mean," said the turnkey, contemptuously
sneering at my apparent hypocrisy, "I mean
your head rascal—Klopstok, the swindler—just
caught."

In a few moments I passed into the crowded
court, and was thrust into a sort of coop, or
dock, in which stood a tall man, a prisoner
like myself. I could not repress a cry of
astonishment. This man, Klopstok, was no
other than the aged merchant, old M. Krantz,
who had held so important a conference with
me at the Nyeborg ferry. True, the grey hair
that had given him a false look of venerable
age was gone, and in its stead appeared a short
grizzled shock of coarse black, while the gold-
rimmed glasses no longer shaded the cunning
dark eyes that leered at judge and jury, witness,
and fellow-prisoner, with the consummate
effrontery of one who knew that he had nothing
for it but to put a bold face on the matter.
He greeted me with a nod and a grin,

Before I recovered from my surprise, to my
great joy I saw friendly faces and heard kind
voices, and M. Paul Krantz, accompanied by
Captain Brown, and by a benevolent-looking
white-haired old gentleman, whom he introduced
as his father, the true Jorn Krantz, as half
Copenhagen could testify, came bustling into
court to speak to my respectability, and
explain the mistake.

I was liberated, and the good Danes seemed
to be as sorry for the rough treatment I had
experienced as if it had been really incumbent
on them to recognise my honesty when
appearances were so terribly against me. To
do Klopstok—alias Bernard, alias Orlemann—
justice, he did not attempt to deny the trick he
had played me: certain as he now was, that he
could not escape punishment on the ground of
his almost innumerable frauds. This man, a
Russian by birth, was the chief of that gang of
swindlers, of whose daring Paul Krantz had
spoken to me at Kiel. He it was, who, on the
arrival of the Emma, had contrived to worm
out, by means of interrogating one of the
mates whom he met at a wharf-side tavern, my
business in Denmark. He, too, in the disguise
of a Baltic mariner, had dogged me to the Krantz
mansion, and had seen, through the window, in
what currency I was paid the large sum due to
Hallett and Jones, of which he resolved to
possess himself. My quick departure somewhat
disconcerted him, but his ready wit had devised
a plan for turning even that to profit, and he had
followed me post haste, to personate the part of
an afflicted father, and to delude me into
exchanging good notes for forged ones: a scheme
in which he had but too well succeeded.

By great good fortune, the swindler had been
captured with my money still on his person, and
as both I and Paul Krantz—who, I need hardly
say, had been basely maligned, and was neither
gambler nor knave, but one of the best of good
fellows—had a list of the numbers, the judges
ordered the property of Hallett and Jones to be
restored to me; and the bankers, who were
profuse in their apologies, were also saved from
loss. Before I left Copenhagen, Herr Klopstok
was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. I
think, however, he must have escaped, for,
during a recent trip to the French dockyards
and arsenals, I could take my oath I saw
him in a suit of party-coloured serge, in irons,
on the deck of a French frigate, bound for
Cayenne.

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
Now publishing, PART III., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.