Villas--has done these three weeks or more; but you'll not find him
there, sir, now. He went to town by the eleven o'clock train, and does
not usually return until the half-past four train."

The country friend had no time to lose in returning to the village, to
ascertain the truth of this statement. He thanked his informant, and
said he would call on Mr. B. at his office in town; but before he left
R----station, he asked the book-keeper who the person was to whom he had
referred him for information as to his friend's place of residence. "One
of the Detective Police, sir," was the answer. I need hardly say that
Mr. B., not without a little surprise, confirmed the accuracy of the
policeman's report in every particular.

When I heard this anecdote of my cousin and his friend, I thought that
there could be no more romances written on the same kind of plot as
Caleb Williams; the principal interest of which, to the superficial
reader, consists in the alternation of hope and fear, that the hero may,
or may not, escape his pursuer. It is long since I have read the story,
and I forget the name of the offended and injured gentleman, whose
privacy Caleb has invaded; but I know that his pursuit of Caleb--his
detection of the various hiding-places of the latter--his following up
of slight clues--all, in fact, depended upon his own energy, sagacity,
and perseverance. The interest was caused by the struggle of man against
man; and the uncertainty as to which would ultimately be successful in
his object; the unrelenting pursuer, or the ingenious Caleb, who seeks
by every device to conceal himself. Now, in 1851, the offended master
would set the Detective Police to work; there would be no doubt as to
their success; the only question would be as to the time that would
elapse before the hiding-place could be detected, and that could not be
a question long. It is no longer a struggle between man and man, but
between a vast organized machinery, and a weak, solitary individual; we
have no hopes, no fears--only certainty. But if the materials of pursuit
and evasion, as long as the chase is confined to England, are taken away
from the store-house of the romancer, at any rate we can no more be
haunted by the idea of the possibility of mysterious disappearances; and
any one who has associated much with those who were alive at the end of
the last century, can testify that there was some reason for such fears.

When I was a child, I was sometime