left half its feathers with the fowler, but was as willing as ever to run again into the snare. And at Paris snares were plentiful, well-baited and carefully covered up. “I can scarcely define the society into which I got at Paris,” said Oakley, when he came to this part of his history. “It was of a motley sort, gathered from all quarters, and, upon the whole, rather pleasant than respectable. It consisted partly of persons I had known in England, either Englishmen or dashing young Frenchmen of fortune, whose acquaintance I had made during their visits to London a few months previously. I had also several letters of introduction, some of which gave me entrance into the best Parisian circles, but these I generally neglected, preferring the gay fellows for whom I bore commendatory scrawls from my London associates. But probably my best recommendation was my pocket, still tolerably garnished, and the recklessness with which I scattered my cash. I felt myself on the high road to ruin, but my down-hill course had given such impetus to my crazy vehicle, that I despaired of checking it, and shut my eyes to the inevitable smash awaiting me at the bottom. “It was not long in coming. Although educated in France, and consequently speaking the language as a native, I always took more kindly to my own countrymen than to Frenchmen, and gradually I detached myself unconsciously from those with whom I had spent much of my time when first in Paris. I exchanged for the worse, in making my sole companions of a set of English scamps, who asked no better than to assist at the plucking of such a pigeon as myself. At first they treated me with tenderness, fearing to spoil their game by a measure of wholesale plunder. They made much of me, frequently favoured me with their company at dinner, occasionally forgot their purses and borrowed from mine, forgetting repayment, and got up card parties, at which, however, I was sometimes allowed to come off a winner. But my gains were units and my losses tens. An imprudent revelation accelerated the catastrophe. My chosen intimate was one Harry Darvel, a tall pale man, about five years older than myself, who would have been good-looking, but for the unpleasant shifting expression of his gray eyes, and for a certain cold rigidity of feature, frequently seen in persons of the profession I afterwards found he exercised. I first made his acquaintance at Baden, met him by appointment at Paris, and he soon became, my chief associate. I knew little of him, except that he had a large acquaintance, lived in good style, spent his money freely, and was one of the most amusing companions I had ever had. By this time I began to see through flattery, when it was not very adroitly administered, and to suspect the real designs of some of the vultures that flocked about me. Darvel never flattered me; his manner was blunt, almost to roughness; he occasionally gave me advice, and affected sincere friendship and anxiety for my welfare.