Mr. Longcluse was right. The shock which his nerves had received did not permit him to sleep very soon. Two hours later he called for the Eau-de-Cologne that stood on his dressing-table; and although he made belief to wet his temples with it, and kept it at his bedside with that professed design, it was Mr. Franklin's belief that he drank the greater part of what remained in the capacious cut-glass bottle. It was not until people were beginning to "turn out" for their daily labour that sleep at length visited the wearied eye-balls of the Crœsus. Three hours of death-like sleep, and Mr. Longcluse, with a little start, was wide awake. "Franklin!" "Yes, Sir." And Mr. Franklin stood at his bedside. "What o'clock is it?" "Just struck ten, Sir." "Hand me the _Times_." This was done. "Tell them to get breakfast as usual. I'm coming down. Open the shutters, and draw the curtains, quite." When Franklin had done this and gone down, Mr. Longcluse read the _Times_ with a stern eagerness, still in bed. The great billiard match between Hood and Markham was given in spirited detail; but he was looking for something else. Just under this piece of news, he found it--"Murder and Robbery, in the Saloon Tavern." He read this twice over, and then searched the paper in vain for any further news respecting it. After this search, he again read the short account he had seen before, very carefully, and more than once. Then he jumped out of bed, and looked at himself in the glass in his dressing-room. "How awfully seedy I am looking!" he muttered, after a careful inspection. "Better by-and-by." His hand was shaking like that of a man who had made a debauch, or was worn out with ague. He looked ten years older. "I should hardly know myself," muttered he. "What a confounded, sinful old fogey I look, and I so young and innocent!" The sneer was for himself and at himself. The delivery of such is an odd luxury which, at one time or other, most men indulge in. Perhaps it should teach us to take them more kindly when other people crack such cynical jokes on our heads, or, at least, to perceive that they don't always argue personal antipathy. The sour smile which had, for a moment, flickered with a wintry light on his face, gave place suddenly to a dark fatigue; his features sank, and he heaved a long, deep, and almost shuddering sigh. There are moments, happily very rare, when the idea of suicide is distinct enough to be dangerous, and having passed which, a man feels that Death has looked him very nearly in the face. Nothing more trite and true than the omnipresence of suffering. The possession of wealth exempts the unfortunate owner from, say, two-thirds of the curse that lies heavy on the human race. Two thirds is a great deal; but so is the other third, and it may have in it, at times, something as terrible as human nature can support.