at a small hotel near
Charing Cross--a gentleman who was evidently a stranger to England, and
whose portmanteaus and other travelling paraphernalia bore the names of
New York manufacturers. He was a portly individual of middle age, and was
still eminently handsome. He dressed well, lived expensively, and had
altogether a prosperous appearance. He took care to inform the landlord
of the hotel that he was not an American, but had returned to the land of
his birth after an absence of something like fifteen years, and after
realizing a handsome fortune upon the other side of the Atlantic. He was
a very gracious and communicative person, and seemed to take life in an
easy agreeable manner, like a man whose habit it was to look on the
brighter side of all things, provided his own comfort was secured. Norton
Percival was the name on this gentleman's luggage, and on the card which
he gave to the waiter whom he desired to look after his letters. After
dining sumptuously on the evening of his arrival in London, this Mr.
Percival strolled out in the autumn darkness, and made his way through
the more obscure streets between Charing Cross and Wardour-street. The
way seemed familiar enough to him, and he only paused now and then to
take note of some alteration in the buildings which he had to pass. The
last twenty years have not made much change in this neighbourhood, and
the traveller from New York found little to surprise him.

"The place looks just as dull and dingy as it used to look when I was a
lad," he said to himself. "I daresay I shall find the old court unchanged
in all these years. But shall I find the old man alive? I doubt that.
Dead more likely, and his money gone to strangers. I wonder whether he
had much money, or whether he was really as poor as he made himself out.
It's difficult to say. I know I made him bleed pretty freely, at one time
and another, before he turned rusty; and it's just possible I may have
had pretty nearly all he had to give."

He was in Wardour-street by this time, looking at the dimly-lighted shops
where brokers' ware of more or less value, old oak carvings, doubtful
pictures, and rusted armour loomed duskily upon the passer-by. At the
corner of Queen Anne's Court he paused, and peered curiously into the
narrow alley.

"The court is still here, at any rate," he muttered to himself, "and I
shall soon settle the other question."

His heart beat faster than it was wont to beat as he drew near hi