day of their lives, ignorant of its very existence.
Of the dwellers to the west of Temple-bar not
one in a thousand knew that scarcely a stone's
throw from the Charterhouse walls there yet
stood some portion of a far more venerable
religious foundation, begun in the last year of the
eleventh century, and linked with many strange
and stirring episodes of English history. Even so
true a lover of the antique and picturesque
as Leigh Hunt, passed it by in his pleasant
memories of the town, without a word.

But Mr. Keckwitch was thinking neither of
the good Knights Hospitallers, nor of Dr.
Johnson, nor of anything nor any one just then,
saving and excepting a certain Mr. Nicodemus
Kidd, who had promised to meet him there
about eight o'clock that Thursday evening.
And Mr. Kidd was late.

The clock in the bar had struck eight long
ago. The clock of St. John's Church, close by,
had struck a quarter-past, and then half-past,
and still Mr. Kidd was not forthcoming. The
head clerk looked at his watch, sighed, shook
his head, poured out a glass of the brown sherry,
and drank it contemplatively. Before he had
quite got to the end of it, a jovial voice in the
bar, and a noisy hand upon the latch of the
glass door, announced his friend's arrival.

Mr. Kidd came in—a tall, florid, good-
humoured looking fellow, with a frank laugh, a
loud cheery voice, and a magnificent pair of red
whiskers. The practised observer, noting his
white hat, his showy watch-guard, his free and
easy bearing, would have pronounced him at
first sight to be a commercial traveller; but the
practised observer would for once have been
wrong.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Keckwitch,"
said he, nodding familiarly to his entertainer,
drawing a chair to the opposite side of
the fire, and helping himself at once to a glass
of wine. " Not my fault, I assure you. Sherry,
eh? Capital sherry, too. Don't know a better
cellar in London, and that's saying something."

"I'm very glad you have been able to look in,
Mr. Kidd," said the head clerk, deferentially.
"I was particularly anxious to see you."

Mr. Kidd laughed, and helped himself to a
second glass.

"It's one of the peculiarities of my profession,
Mr. Keckwitch," said he, " that I find the
world divided into two classes of people—those
who are particularly anxious to see me, and
those who are particularly anxious not to see
me. Uncommon good sherry, and no mistake!"

Mr. Keckwitch glanced towards the glass-
door, edged his chair a little nearer to that of
his guest, and said huskily:

"Have you had time, Mr. Kidd, to think over
that little matter we were speaking about the
other day?"

"That little matter?" repeated Mr. Kidd, in
the same loud, off-hand way as before. " Oh
yes—I've not forgotten it."

He said this, filling; his glass for the third
time, and holding it in a knowing fashion
between his eye and the lamp. The head clerk
came an inch or two nearer, and, bending
forward with his two fat hands upon his knees,
ejaculated:

"Well?"

"Well, Mr. Keckwitch?"

"What is your opinion?"

Mr. Kidd tossed off the third glass, leaned
back in his chair, and, with a smile of delightful
candour, said:

"Well, sir, to be plain with you, I can give
no opinion till you and I understand each other
a little better."

Mr. Keckwitch breathed hard.

"What do you mean, Mr. Kidd?" said he.
"Haven't I made myself understood?"

Mr. Kidd pushed his glass away, thrust his
hands into his pockets, and became suddenly
grave and business-like.

"Well, sir," replied he, dropping his noisy
voice and jovial smile as if they had been a
domino and mask, " this, you see, is an unusual
case. It's a sort of case we're not accustomed
to. We don't go into things without a motive,
and you've given us no motive to go upon."

The clerk's face darkened.

"Isn't it motive enough," said he, " that I
want information, and am willing to pay for it?"

"Why, no, Mr. Keckwitch—not quite. We
must be satisfied of the use you will make of
that information."

"And supposin' I don't want to make use of
it at all?"

"Then, sir, I'm afraid we can't help you.
We are not spies; we are a legal force. Our
business is to promote the ends of justice—not
to serve private curiosity."

Mr. Keckwitch looked down, silent, baffled,
perplexed.

"I should have thought," said he, " that the
mere fact of any professional man keepin' his
home and his ways so deadly secret, would be
motive enough for inquiry. Where there's
mystery, there's safe to be somethin' wrong.
People ain't so close when they've nothin' to
hide."

"Some folks are eccentric, you know, Mr.
Keckwitch."

"It ain't eccentricity," replied the clerk,
promptly.

"What then?"

"I can't say. I may have my suspicions;
and my suspicions may be right, or may be
wrong. Anyhow, one can't see far in the dark."

"No, that's true," replied Mr. Kidd.

"If it was no more than his address, I'd be
satisfied," added Keckwitch, staring hard at the
fire.

"Now I tell you what it is, sir," said the
other, " we must have your motive. Why do
you want to know a certain person's address?
What is it to you where he lives or how he lives?"

"It is a great deal to me," replied Mr. Keckwitch."
I'm a respectable man, and I don't
choose to work under any but a respectable
employer."

Mr. Kidd nodded, and caressed the red
whiskers.