d
for life. The lesson is worth remembering."

I was still pondering over this apophthegm, when Crofton aroused me
by pushing across the table a great heap of gold. "This is all yours,
Potts," said he; "and remember that as you are now my agent, travelling
for the house of Crofton and Co., that you journey at my cost."

Of course I would not listen to this proposal, and, although urged by
Miss Crofton with all a woman's tact and delicacy, I persisted so firmly
in my refusal, that they were obliged to yield. I now had a hundred
pounds all my own; and though the sum be not a very splendid one,
I remember some French writer--I 'm not sure it is not Jules
Janin--saying, "Any man who can put his hand into his pocket and find
five Napoleons there, is rich;" and he certainly supports his theory
with considerable sophistry and cleverness, mainly depending on the
assumption that any of the reasonable daily necessities of life, even in
a luxurious point of view, are attainable with such means. Now, although
a hundred pounds would not very long supply resources for such a life,
yet, as I am not a Frenchman, nor living in Paris, still less had I
habits or tastes of a costly kind, I might very well eke out three
months pleasantly on this sum, and in these three months what might not
happen? In a "hundred days" the great Napoleon crushed the whole might
of the Austrian empire, and secured an emperor's daughter for his bride;
and in another "hundred days" he made the tour of France, from Cannes to
Rochefort, and lost an empire by the way! Wonderful things might then be
compassed within three months.

"What are you saying about three months, Potts?" asked Crofton, for
unwittingly I had uttered these words aloud.

"I was observing," said I, "that in three months from this day, we
should arrange to meet somewhere. Where shall we say?"

"Geneva is very central; shall we name Geneva?"

"Oh, on no account Let our rendezvous be in Italy Let us say Rome."

"Rome be it, then," cried Crofton. "Now for another point: let us have a
wager as to who first discovers the object of our search. I 'll bet you
twenty Napoleons, Potts, to ten,--for as we are two to one, so should
the wager be."

"I take you," cried I, entering into his humor, "and I feel as certain
of success as if I had your money in my hands."

"Will you have another wager with _me?_" whispered Mary Crofton, as she
came behind my chair. "It is, that you 'll not persuade Miss H