to the Farmers' and Citizens' Bank. The president, thinking of the
other, was fully reassured, and was about to pass on. Here the
matter might have dropped, and would in most cases. But Mendenhall, a
methodical and careful man, wished to vindicate his business prudence
by explaining that he had taken no risk in indorsing for a stranger,
since he retained possession of the goods.

The rest is too painful.

"I do not rhyme for that dull wight" who does not foresee that New
York, Chicago and Denver checks were returned in due course, legibly
inscribed with the saddest words of tongue or pen, "No funds." Or that
Mr. Britt fully justified his self-given reputation for absence of
mind by neglecting to call for his furniture.

Meanwhile, Mr. Britt unostentatiously absented his body as well,
taking the trolley for an inland village. At the time of Mendenhall's
interview with the president he was speeding southward across country
in a livery rig, catching the Lackawanna local for Binghamton about
the time the wires were working and he was being searched for on all
Lehigh Valley trains.

"Hello, Kirkland!" he said to the night clerk at the Arlington. "Back
again, like a bad sixpence! Have my trunk sent up, will you? No--no
supper!"

"Letter for you, Mr. Mitchell. Just came," said the clerk
respectfully. "So we were expecting you. Haven't seen you for a long
time."

Britt-Mitchell thrust the letter in his pocket unopened. "It'll keep
till morning. I'm for bed. Good-night, Frank."

He turned in, weary with his exertions to be sure, but with the
pleasing consciousness that

..._some one done
Has earned a night's repose_.

Elmsdale never learned these particulars, however. His genial and
expansive smile and the unobtrusive manner of his fading away are
there vaguely associated with Cheshire Puss, of joyful memory, whose
disappearance, like his, began with the end of the tale.

Chapter III

"_There's a franklin in the wilds of Kent, hath
brought three hundred marks with him in gold ... a
kind of auditor_."

It was quite late when Britt-Mitchell arose like a giant refreshed.
First ringing for breakfast, he bathed and shaved and arrayed himself
carefully in glad habiliments of quiet taste and cut, in which he bore
slight resemblance to the rough-and-ready Britt of Elmsdale.

Sitting indolently sideways to the table, his feet on a chair, he
discussed an excellent breakfast le