is coat was a little faulty in the
set of the collar, as if the person who had taken the garment apart and
turned the goods had not put it together again with practised skill. It
was without spot and the buttons were new. The edges of his shirt-cuffs
had been trimmed with the scissors. Face and vesture alike revealed to
the sharp eye of the Italian the woe underneath. "He has a wife,"
thought Ristofalo.

Richling looked up with a smile. "How can you be so sure you will make,
and not lose?"

"I never fail." There was not the least shade of boasting in the man's
manner. Richling handed out his dollar. It was given without patronage
and taken with simple thanks.

"Where goin' to meet to-morrow morning?" asked Ristofalo. "Here?"

"Oh! I forgot," said Richling. "Yes, I suppose so; and then you'll tell
me how you invested it, will you?"

"Yes, but you couldn't do it."

"Why not?"

Raphael Ristofalo laughed. "Oh! fifty reason'."

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW HE DID IT.

Ristofalo and Richling had hardly separated, when it occurred to the
latter that the Italian had first touched him from behind. Had Ristofalo
recognized him with his back turned, or had he seen him earlier and
followed him? The facts were these: about an hour before the time when
Richling omitted to apply for employment in the ill-smelling store in
Tchoupitoulas street, Mr. Raphael Ristofalo halted in front of the same
place,--which appeared small and slovenly among its more pretentious
neighbors,--and stepped just inside the door to where stood a single
barrel of apples,--a fruit only the earliest varieties of which were
beginning to appear in market. These were very small, round, and smooth,
and with a rather wan blush confessed to more than one of the senses
that they had seen better days. He began to pick them up and throw them
down--one, two, three, four, seven, ten; about half of them were
entirely sound.

"How many barrel' like this?"

"No got-a no more; dass all," said the dealer. He was a Sicilian. "Lame
duck," he added. "Oael de rest gone."

"How much?" asked Ristofalo, still handling the fruit.

The Sicilian came to the barrel, looked in, and said, with a gesture of
indifference:--

"'M--doll' an' 'alf."

Ristofalo offered to take them at a dollar if he might wash and sort
them under the dealer's hydrant, which could be heard running in the
back yard. The offer would have been rejected with rude scorn but for
one thing: it was s