ination of brains
and force! Did you ever notice his fist? It might belong to a
prize-fighter, except that the hands are perfectly kept! You'd know at
once he was a man accustomed to fighting, who would sweep aside
obstacles, get what he wanted!"

"Think so?" Lord Ronsdale smoked steadily. "You, as a magistrate, I
suppose, know him well?"

"Should hardly go that far; taciturn chap, don't you know! I don't
believe any one really knows him."

"Or about him?" suggested the other, crossing his legs nonchalantly.

"Not much; only that he is an alien."

"An alien?" quickly. "Not a colonial?"

"No; he has lived in the colonies--Tasmania, and so on. But by birth
he's an American."

"An American, eh? And practising at the British bar?"

"Not the first case of the kind; exceptions have been made before, and
aliens 'called,' as we express it. Steele's hobby of criminology brought
him to London, and his earnestness and ability in that line procured for
him the privilege he sought. As member of the incorporated society that
passes upon the qualifications of candidates it was my pleasure to sit
in judgment on him; we raked him fore and aft but, bless you, he stood
squarely on his feet and refused to be tripped."

"So he came to England to pursue a certain line?" said Lord Ronsdale
half to himself.

"A man with a partiality for criminal work would naturally look to the
modern Babylon. Steele apparently works more to gratify that
predilection than for any reward in pounds and pence. Must have private
means; have known him to spend a deal of time and money on cases there
couldn't have been a sixpence in."

"How'd he happen to get down in Tasmania? Odd place for a Yankee!"

"That's one of the questions he wasn't asked," laughingly. "Perhaps what
our Teutonic friends would call the _Wander-lust_ took him there."
Rising, "My compliments to Sir Charles when you see him."

Lord Ronsdale remained long at the club and the card-table that night;
over the bits of pasteboard, however, his zest failed to flare high,
although instinctively he played with a discernment that came from long
practice. But the sight of a handful of gold pieces here, of a little
pile there, the varying shiftings of the bright disks, as the vagaries
of chance sent them this way or that, seemed to move him in no great
degree,--perhaps because the winning or losing of a few hundred pounds,
more or less, would have small effect on his fortunes or misfortunes.