My policeman drew himself up to deliver his great effect. ‘Monsieur, your ring was found in another man’s pocket!’ I stared at him in bewilderment, mingled with an indefinite fear, while he continued his narrative in a less courteous and more confidential tone than he had hitherto assumed. ‘Ah! _mon ami_, one may be too clever; one’s dexterity may lead one astray if it be not balanced by discretion. You had not long left the office, when another Englishman came in complaining that he had lost a pocket-book containing all his money. He had put his hand in his pocket to bring it out, meaning to pay for something, but found it gone, and in its place a diamond ring—your ring. For my own part, I do not doubt your honesty—even your generosity. You believed, doubtless, that exchange is not robbery, and that, in leaving your ring in exchange for his _porte-monnaie_, you would at once obtain a memento of a compatriot and do him a practical benefit. That is the interpretation I should wish to put on the affair; but the owner of the pocket-book will not see it in that light—he lacks imagination, as so many English do. Of course, your coming to ask us to try to recover your lost ring tends to give colour to his version of the matter, which is, that while you were robbing him of his money, the ring slipped from your hand, and remained in his pocket; and with a lack of sympathy for a countryman, which I grieve to recount, he demands that you should be arrested, a duty which I am reluctantly compelled to fulfil.’ I was absolutely dumb with surprise and anger. Had I had my wits about me, I might—though circumstances were against me—have brought some counter-charge of theft against my accuser; but I was so stupefied by the strange turn events had taken, that I submitted meekly to be searched, to have the fateful pocket-book taken from me, and to be led away to prison. Somehow, too, I was unable to secure possession of the ring that was the cause of my undoing, and I have not seen it since my arrest. So here I sit in my cell, depressed and weary, a victim to the bitterest self-reproach. I could almost wish to be condemned to lifelong imprisonment, for what is freedom worth to me? After such a piece of suicidal folly as I have been guilty of, I shall never dare to lift up my head among my professional brethren, and I fear that nothing will be left for me but to take to honesty when my term expires. FISH-CULTURE.