The "Spy" a rival paper, showed a tendency to dwell on the extenuating circumstances. But it is so much easier for a community to believe evil rather than good of a person, that mere excuses and apologies, and the suggestion that the youth had been victimized, had little weight. Besides, the world shows a tendency to detest weak fools even more than knaves. After his last bitter experience Haldane felt unwilling to venture to another hotel, and he endeavored to find a quiet boarding-place; but as soon as he mentioned his name, the keepers, male and female, suddenly discovered that they had no rooms. Night was near, and his courage was beginning to fail him, when he at last found a thrifty gentlewoman who gave far more attention to her housewifely cares than to the current news. She readily received the well-dressed stranger, and showed him to his room. Haldane did not hide his name from her, for he resolved to spend the night in the street before dropping a name which now seemed to turn people from him as if contagion lurked in it, and he was relieved to find that, as yet, it had to her no disgraceful associations. He was bent on securing one good night's rest, and so excused himself from going down to supper, lest he should meet some one that knew him. After nightfall he slipped out to an obscure restaurant for his supper. His precaution, however, was vain, for on his return to his room he encountered in a hallway one of the loungers who had witnessed the recent scene at the hotel. After a second's stare the man passed on down to the shabby-genteel parlor, and soon whist, novels, and papers were dropped, as the immaculate little community learned of the contaminating presence beneath the same roof with themselves. "A man just out of prison! A man merely released on bail, and who would certainly be convicted and tried!" With a virtue which might have put "Caesar's wife" to the blush, sere and withered gentlewomen pursed up their mouths, and declared that they could not sleep in the same house with such a disreputable person. The thrifty landlady, whose principle of success was the concentration of all her faculties on the task of satisfying the digestive organs of her patrons, found herself for once at fault, and she was quite surprised to learn what a high-toned class of people she was entertaining. But, then, "business is business." Poor Haldane was but one uncertain lodger, and here were a dozen or more "regulars" arrayed against him. The sagacious woman was not long in climbing to the door of the obnoxious guest, and her very knock said, "What are you doing here?"