room; and no other trace remained of Doctor Chantry.

"What has he done with himself, Skenedonk?" I exclaimed.

The Oneida begged me to read that we might trail him.

It was a long and very tiresome letter written in my master's spider
tracks, containing long and tiresome enumerations of his services. He
presented a large bill for his guardianship on the voyage and across
France. He said I was not only a Rich Man through his Influence, but I
had proved myself an ungrateful one, and had robbed him of his only
Sentiment after a disappointed Existence. My Impudence was equaled only
by my astonishing Success, and he chose not to contemplate me as the
Husband of Beauty and Lofty Station, whose Shoes he in his Modesty and
Worth, felt unworthy to unlatch. Therefore he withdrew that very day
from Paris, and would embrace the Opportunity of going into pensive
Retirement and rural Contemplation, in his native Kingdom; where his
Sister would join him when she could do so with Dignity and Propriety.

I glanced from line to line smiling, but the postscript brought me to my
feet.

"The Deposit which you left with me I shall carry with me, as no more
than my Due for lifting low Savagery to high Gentility, and beg to
subscribe my Thanks for at least this small Tribute of Gratitude."

"Doctor Chantry is gone with the money!"

Skenedonk bounded up grasping the knife which he always carried in a
sheath hanging from his belt.

"Which way did the old woman go?"

"Stop," I said.

The Indian half crouched for counsel.

"I'll be a prince! Let him have it."

"Let him rob you?"

"We're quits, now. I've paid him for the lancet stab I gave him."

"But you haven't a whole bagful of coin left."

"We brought nothing into France, and it seems certain we shall take
nothing but experience out of it. And I'm young, Skenedonk. He isn't."

The Oneida grunted. He was angrier than I had ever seen him.

"We ought to have knocked the old woman on the head at Saratoga," he
responded.

Annabel's trick had swept away my little fortune. With recklessness
which repeated loss engenders I proposed we scatter the remaining coin
in the street, but Skenedonk prudently said we would divide and conceal
it in our clothes. I gave the kind valet a handful to keep his heart
warm; and our anxieties about our valuables were much lightened.

Then we consulted about our imminent start, and I told my servant it
would be better to send the post-chaise across