At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should have been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him, but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.

"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured, confidingly. "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do."

Hephzy was indignant.

"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. "Well! I must say!

What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce case! I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and cotton wool wig--What did he call him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.

And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too."

The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go next, what we should do when we decided where that "next" was to be--all these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back the old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we would move with it--somewhere--either about England or to the Continent.

I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care much about anything.

Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the streets.

She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind her of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and the belief that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that express purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.

The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired of London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city was still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's ever growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names--Fleet Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest--names as familiar to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse, were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content as Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I had determined, and still meant, not to do.

One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em in Boston, Hosy." She would have had a glorious time.

Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.

"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said. "I was about to send them to your hotel."

He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into the private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home; it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the envelopes.

One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news, advice and nonsense. "The Black Brig" had gone into another edition.

Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be ashamed to accept the royalties, but he would continue to give my account credit for them until I cabled to the contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter was almost like a chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of homesickness.

One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not open it. It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized the handwriting as Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our "lots" in the Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all bills before leaving home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked. I must send him a check at once.

The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled a long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was English and the postmark "London." The address, moreover, was "Captain Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A." The letter had obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there to New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone, presumably Simmons, the postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles"

and my publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been scratched out and "28 Camford Street, London, England," added.

I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle, dead so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened, to Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her by right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides, my curiosity was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the envelope.

Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with writing. I read the first line.

"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.

"Sir:

"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"

"I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:

"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.

"Sir:

"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore, address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at all. (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal claim.) My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their only child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might demand--that is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which you kept from her and from my father all these years. My father told me the whole story before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several times, but that his letters had been ignored. My father was an English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume. He would not STOOP to such measures even against those who, as you know well, so meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance. He is dead now. He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with which you might and SHOULD have provided him. His forbearance was wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his. I am now demanding it myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY understood. I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial restitution, that is all. It is what he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from you within a reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me care Mrs.

Briggs, 218 ---- Street, London, England.

"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,

"Yours,

"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.

"P. S.

"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for charity. I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy man. I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."

I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down and read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted, but it was from Francis Strickland Morley. From "Little Frank!" I think my first and greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there really was a "Little Frank." Hephzy had been right. Once more I should have to take off my hat to Hephzy.

The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did, in London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with "Little Frank" himself. I could scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the result of a special dispensation--we had been "sent" there. In the face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.

The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of a young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it--he, the son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his "rights." He should have his rights; I would see to that.

I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim upon the wealthy relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.

The wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities, of the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I would, myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him, he and I would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.

I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs," thrust the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my pocket, and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked up from his desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:

"What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir."

"No," I answered, shortly. "Where is ---- Street? Is it far from here?"

It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and so. It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I might take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would call a cab at once.

William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.

Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The locality did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of "pubs"

and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels" seemed to be a viand much in demand.

---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate. Three-storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors, predominated. Number 218 was one of these. The signs "Lodgings" over the tarnished bell-pull and the name "Briggs" on the plate beside it proved that I had located the house from which the letter had been sent.

I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy maid-servant answered the ring.

"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.

The maid looked at me.

"Wat, sir?" she said.

"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice. "Is he in?"