me if I can!"

"Is he in this country," said Brandon; "or do you believe that he has
gone abroad?"

"Vy, much of one and not a little of the other!" said the euphonious
confidant.

"How! speak plain, man; what do you mean?"

"Vy, I means, your 'oner, that I can't say vhere he is."

"And this," said Brandon, with a muttered oath,--"this is your boasted
news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if you trifle with me or play me
false, I will hang you,--by the living God, I will!"

The man shrank back involuntarily from Brandon's vindictive forehead
and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar to low vice, answered,
though in a humbler tone,--

"And vet good vill that do your 'oner? If so be as how you scrags I,
will that put your vorship in the vay of finding he?"

Never was there an obstacle in grammar through which a sturdy truth
could not break; and Brandon, after a moody pause, said in a milder
voice,--

"I did not mean to frighten you! Never mind what I said; but you can
surely guess whereabouts he is, or what means of life he pursues.
Perhaps,"--and a momentary paleness crossed Brandon's swarthy
visage,--"perhaps he may have been driven into dishonesty in order to
maintain himself!"

The informant replied with great naivete that such a thing was not
impossible! And Brandon then entered into a series of seemingly careless
but artful cross-questionings, which either the ignorance or the craft
of the man enabled him to baffle. After some time Brandon, disappointed
and dissatisfied, gave up his professional task; and bestowing on the
man many sagacious and minute instructions as well as a very liberal
donation, he was forced to dismiss his mysterious visitor, and to
content himself with an assured assertion that if the object of his
inquiries should not already be gone to the devil, the strange gentleman
employed to discover him would certainly, sooner or later, bring him to
the judge.

This assertion, and the interview preceding it, certainly inspired Sir
William Brandon with a feeling like complacency, although it was mingled
with a considerable alloy.

"I do not," thought he, concluding his meditations when he was left
alone,--"I do not see what else I can do! Since it appears that the boy
had not even a name when he set out alone from his wretched abode,
I fear that an advertisement would have but little chance of even
designating, much less of finding him, after so long an absence.
Besides, it might