to my own misery.  Failing in this, for my hand was stayed by a voice I heard calling to me, I fled the country and sought relief for my feelings in the wilds of Chili.  I left nearly all to my wife, took but little with me, for my object was to bury myself from the world that had known me, and respected me.  Destitution followed me; whither I went there seemed no rest, no peace of mind for me.  The past floated uppermost in my mind.  I was ever recurring to home, to those with whom I had associated, to an hundred things that had endeared me to my own country.  Years passed-years of suffering and sorrow, and I found myself a lone wanderer, without friend or money.  During this time it was reported at home, as well as chronicled in the newspapers, that I was dead.  The inventor of this report had ends, I will not name them here, to serve.  I was indeed dead to all who had known me happy in this world.  Disguised, a mere shadow of what I was once, I wandered back to New York, heart-sick and discouraged, and buried myself among those whose destitution, worse, perhaps, than my own, afforded me a means of consolation.  My life has long been a burden to me; I have many times prayed God, in his mercy, to take me away, to close the account of my misery.  Do you ask my name?  Ah! that is what pains me most.  To live unknown, a wretched outcast, in a city where I once enjoyed a name that was respected, is what has haunted my thoughts, and tortured my feelings.  But I cannot withhold it, even though it has gone down, tainted and dishonored.  It is Henry Montford.  And with this short record I close my history, leaving the rest for those to search out who find this paper, at my death, which cannot be long hence.  “Henry Montford.  “New York, Nov. -, 184-.”

A few sighs follow the reading of the paper, but no very deep interest, no very tender emotion, is awakened in the hearts of the goodly.  Nevertheless, it throws a flood of light upon the morals of a class of society vulgarly termed fashionable.  The meek females hold their tears and shake their heads.  Brother Spyke elongates his lean figure, draws near, and says the whole thing is very unsatisfactory.  Not one word is let drop about the lost money.

Brother Phills will say this-that the romance is very cleverly got up, as the theatre people say.

The good-natured fat man, breathing somewhat freer, says:  “Truly! these people have a pleasant way of passing out of the world.  They die of their artful practices-seeking to devour the good and the generous.”

“There’s more suffers than imposes-an’ there’s more than’s written meant in that same bit of paper.  Toddleworth was as inoffensive a creature as you’d meet in a day.  May God forgive him all his faults;” interposes Mr. Detective Fitzgerald, gathering up his cap and passing slowly out of the room.