f mine. I like him myself, because he's afraid of me. He's one
of the ornaments of Bloomsbury, and has a collection of some
kind--birds' eggs or something that's supposed to be curious. I bet it's
nothing to my clients!"

"What a lark it would be to play billy with the labels!" chuckled Mr.
Wickham. "By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all these
things skipping about the premises like what's-his-name!"

At this moment, the guard, surprised by the sound of voices, opened the
door of his little cabin.

"You had best step in here, gentlemen," said he, when he had heard their
story.

"Won't you come, Wickham?" asked Michael.

"Catch me--I want to travel in a van," replied the youth.

And so the door of communication was closed; and for the rest of the run
Mr. Wickham was left alone over his diversions on the one side, and on
the other Michael and the guard were closeted together in familiar talk.

"I can get you a compartment here, sir," observed the official, as the
train began to slacken speed before Bishopstoke station. "You had best
get out at my door, and I can bring your friend."

Mr. Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly suspected)
beginning to "play billy" with the labels in the van, was a young
gentleman of much wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a highly
vacant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived to get himself
blackmailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar, resident for
political reasons in the gay city of Paris. A common friend (to whom he
had confided his distress) recommended him to Michael; and the lawyer
was no sooner in possession of the facts than he instantly assumed the
offensive, fell on the flank of the Wallachian forces, and, in the
inside of three days, had the satisfaction to behold them routed and
fleeing for the Danube. It is no business of ours to follow them on this
retreat, over which the police were so obliging as to preside
paternally. Thus relieved from what he loved to refer to as the
Bulgarian Atrocity, Mr. Wickham returned to London with the most
unbounded and embarrassing gratitude and admiration for his saviour.
These sentiments were not repaid either in kind or degree; indeed,
Michael was a trifle ashamed of his new client's friendship; it had
taken many invitations to get him to Winchester and Wickham Manor; but
he had gone at last, and was now returning. It has been remarked by some
judicious thinker (possibly J.F. Smith) that Pr