By the time I had got through my letters and my breakfast, my servant came to tell me that my waiting-room was already full of people--'mostly ladies,' he said--though it was nearly two hours before the time I was accustomed to see any one professionally. With a foreboding that a good deal of worry and a loss of much valuable time was in store for me, I entered my consulting-room, and gave orders that the ladies should be admitted in the order of their arrival. They were all applicants for the keys; and out of the sixteen persons that were waiting, fourteen were ladies. The two gentlemen were soon despatched. They _had_ lost keys, near the spot for anything they could tell; but on being satisfied that what had been found did in no way agree with the description of what they had lost, they apologised for the trouble and went at once. But it was no such easy matter to get rid of my fourteen lady-applicants. Some of them were for inflicting upon me a narration of family affairs that had not the most remote connection with the business in hand. A few kept closely enough to the subject on which they had come; but would not take a denial that the keys in my possession were not the least like those they said they had lost; and it was only at the sacrifice of some of my usual politeness that I was able to get rid of them. Not one of the morning's arrival could make out anything like a fair claim, and one or two owned that they had not even been in the quarter where the keys were found on the day specified. More letters, more applicants, came as the day wore on; and I began heartily to repent of my well-meant desire to benefit my fellow-mortals by taking the trouble to find out the rightful owner of a lost article. I was just on the point of giving orders to my servant to put off all further applicants until the following morning, when he ushered in a comfortable-looking lady of middle age, who proceeded straight to business by at once describing with the greatest accuracy the bunch of keys that had given me so much anxiety that day; and assuring me that she had passed the spot indicated in the advertisement on the morning they were found. 'Nine keys on the bunch, all Chubb's patent; three very small ones, five of various sizes, and one latch-key longer than any of the others.' The description was perfect. Some of the other applicants had curiously enough been right as to the number, but wrong as to description.