object had been to make a sensation it succeeded perfectly. They overwhelmed me with questions. I told my story just as it had occurred and asked Travis if be could give me a lift home that night. He could. "Well then" said I "let me share your dinner meanwhile, and tell me all that has happened here."

We called for more okra soup, more spring chickens and asparagus, and a great deal more champagne, and while I was giving an account of the provender, Travis gave me an account of Benschoten's proceedings.

Silas had become hopelessly involved, not so much from his expenditures (though these were on a sufficiently liberal scale) as from unsuccessful "operations" in Wall Street. An exposé was inevitable; he resolved to anticipate it by flight. Pocketing all his receipts at the begining of the quarter, amounting to thirty thousand dollars or more (five sixths of which was in no respect his property but only passed through his hands as agent or receiver, to say nothing of his liabilities) he took passage for Europe under an assumed name. European rogues are invariably represented in European novels as escaping to America, and too plentiful an amount of such gentry does find its way to our shores. But it is equally true that the American rogue usually runs off to Europe.. He has that and Texas to choose between. Silas' abolition not principles exactly but professions as well as his refined tastes made him decidedly object to the . latter place. But when all his plans were arranged, he came very near bringing up in Singsing, owing to an unexpected turn in his affairs. Amanda Garland was his chère amie. Though this did not prevent her from having some other little flirtations on hand, and being pretty well known to a certain set, she really was much attached to Benschoten, and he loved her as much as it was in his nature to love any one but himself. Without much reputation for cleverness, it was nevertheless she and she only who discovered the secret of his desperate condition and intended departure, as women will find things out even when not particularly brilliant. Probably she threatened to blow up the whole project unless he would make her the companion of his journey, at any rate he actually disposed of the berth which he had engaged and promised to make Canada his refuge instead, if she would

go thither a day in advance and wait for him. After she had fallen into the snare, a mere caprice of hers was near breaking up the plan again. She would not go alone; she must have a beau to accompany her. With a little time Silas could easily have supplied this requisite, but time was the very thing he could not spare. His only hope was to catch some innocent travelling northward, which would have been much easier later in the season then it was at that time. All at once he stumbled upon me and his ready wit suggested the strategem which he had so successfully put into execution. The next evening he was off in the Humbug.

"As for you" said Travis, "you were missed at the meeting that night and angry enough we were with you for not coming. However we signed your name to the memorial just as if you had been there, and it made no difference [not an uncommon proceeding in our free and easy country, this taking one's signature for granted]. Your family took it very coolly. Mrs. M. said you had probably gone over to Jersey to look after some horse or other. The papers have n't had much time to speculate on the mysterious disappearance, but our set said enough about it. Your old flame Mary Perkins had gone to Staten Island for some days to see her sick aunt, and Storey Hunter said she had eloped with you. You may judge what a blessing it was to her husband. I believe she felt it her duty to promenade Broadway three hours a day for three days after. And Jack Foolidge swore you were Benschoten's accomplice and twice as great a defaulter as he was. But most people thought Silas had doctored you to save exposure, in consequence of your having found him out."

"It's a mercy "said I" that I never was mixed up with the gentleman in any pecuniary transactions, or they might have suspected me of complicity with good reason. But have you heard anything of a certain horse that I commissioned our absent friend to buy for me?"

"That "replied Travis" I did n't mean to tell you for fear of consequences, but as you take the whole business with praise-worthy coolness perhaps you will listen to this part of it without flaring up very fearfully. The Humbug did n't sail till the afternoon, so that Silas had time to do one final bit of swindling just before he

started; though you would hardly have thought a man in his position competent for it. He went out to your place by day break, met the owner of the horse there, represented to him and to your groom that you were detained in town on business and had sent him to pay for the animal. So he did pay for him. Then says he 'Mr. Manhattan has promised me a drive of the horse for my trouble' and he actually borrowed your sulky and harness and drove straight off to Snaffletons.' 'Snaffleton' he says 'I have a first-rate young horse here, but he is too good for a hard-making business man like me, and besides I want some money to take up a note to-day. Just let me show you what time he can make.' So he took him round that half-mile track just below Snaffleton's and he made some very tall time for a green horse, and Snaffleton paid him seven hundred cash down. Your people could n't think what had become of him, till one of Snaffleton's boys came to Devilshoof to say that your sulky and harness were in his yard."

The surest way to disarm ridicule is to be the first to tell the story against yourself. This I did, and joined everywhere in the laugh raised at my expense. However the horse was not given up without an effect to recover him, though there was small hope of success. Benschoten had bought the chesnut with his own money or that of his creditors but not mine at any

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rate, nor had I any witnesses of the original bargain. But then again Silas had represented himself to my groom as acting for me when he bought him, and it stood to reason that I would not buy a horse to sell him again an hour after. The Irishman might have been of some assistance to me, but he had put out for parts unknown, probably Mr. Snaffleton had made it worth his while to do so, on learning the flaw in his own title. In search of Mr. Snaffleton I went. He was a dealer in and trainer of "fast crabs" about two miles below me. At first he put on a most injured innocence air as if I had come to impose upon his guileless simplicity: he had bought the horse and paid a high price for him. I offered him the price and a hundred over for his trouble. He refused, and well he might, for he had already been offered twelve hundred by another party, and the chesnut was believed to be worth at least sixteen. Gradually

we got into a considerable heat and made a tolerable row between us. Luckily Mr. Snaffleton was in an unusually generous mood; I suppose like Sampson Brass, he had just been cheating somebody and getting the change; and after we had interchanged much argumentative elocution he thus delivered himself of his ultimatum.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Manhattan, I'm an honest man [was there ever a horse-dealer the reverse?] and I want to do what's fair, and not only fair but liberal. I bought the horse and am entitled to him but if you won't make a muss about it, I'll give you four hundred dollars."

"Cash? Snaffleton."

"Two hundred in bankable bills, there they are" spreading out four fifties of the Merchants' Bank with a magnificent air, "and my note at three months for the balance, if you'll give me a receipt in full of all claims or interest in the horse."

It was something to get 200 out of a jockey without having actually given him anything for it. I consented and wrote the discharge, and Mr. Snaffleton wrote me the note at three months in a very professional style of chirography and orthography.

"And now" said I, pocketing the four fifties, "you say you want to do what's liberal. So do I: I don't mean to be out-done by you or any other man. This note of yours being of no value whatever, I make you a present of it back again - and I hope you duly appreciate my generosity."

Three months after this there was a great match on the Centreville between two trotters, both untried but both reputed to be something very slashing. I staked a large pile on my horse, as we continued to call him because he ought to have been mine; and won a few hundreds, but it gave me little consolation; I was more vexed than ever to think how I had lost that chesnut, after his making such time as he then did.

I saw Amanda once again. It was the very next summer at Saratoga in the height of the season. How she got it deponent saith not, but she had plenty of money and was living on intimate terms with a very respectable Presbyterian family. She passed for a lady whose husband had been suddenly called away to the

South on business. As the Presbyterian family were not in our set, it was no business of mine to tell them who she was.

THE DUCHESS' POCKET-HAND

KERCHIEF.

A STORY WITH SEVERAL MORALS, AND NO PARTICULAR PLOT. Knickerbocker, January 1855.

MRS. ROBINSON was at a ball, sitting along-side the Duchess of Castelfondu, a real live French duchess of the Faubourg St. Germain.

Who was Mrs. Robinson? She was an American lady, and that is enough. Be assured she was no body whom you know. There is not the least possible allusion intended to the Robinsons of X-place, who are in your set, or the Robinsons of Y street, who are not. If you will be very curious, her husband came originally of an English family, and was related to the Mr. Robinson who made that famous tour with Messrs. Brown and Jones, a year or two ago.

How did Mrs. Robinson come into her present position ? Travelling for mere guide-book purposes is pretty plain sailing in these days of Murray and steam, when all the world speaks English, and the rest of mankind French. But travelling abroad, or living abroad, for the sake of foreign society, is another matter, and somewhat of a mystery still. Every man can go to Corinth now-a-days, but not every man or woman can see all the Corinthians. Overhaul the list of your own and your friends' experience; you will find some queer pages in it, and not a few puzzling contrasts. Mrs. Mgoes abroad, dines with a prince in one country, lives at an earl's house in another, and so forth. Mrs. Nevery way her equal, moving in precisely the same sphere at home, and fortified with as good antecedents and recommendations, takes very nearly the same tour without receiving the least attention worth talking of when she