The denizen of this little chamber had already closed his outer shutters, and was just on the point of locking up his doors, and retiring to his repast, when two young men entered. They were evidently Italians, from their costume and peculiar dialect. Had it been earlier in the day, when there would have been sufficient light to have discerned their features and expression, it is probable that our merchant would have defeated their plans, for he was well skilled in detecting the tokens of fraud or design in the human countenance. But they had chosen their time too appropriately. One of them, advancing toward the counter, demanded change in French coin for an English sovereign, which he laid upon the sliding board, and passed through the wire partition. The moneychanger rose immediately, and having ascertained that the coin was genuine, returned its proper equivalent by the customary mode of transfer. The Italians turned as if to leave the apartment, when he who had received the money suddenly dropped the silver, as though accidentally, upon the floor. As it was now nearly dark, it was scarcely to be expected that they could find the whole of the pieces without the assistance of a light. This the unconscious merchant hastened to supply; and unlocking, without suspicion, the door of the partition between them, stooped with a candle over the floor in search of the lost coin. In this position the unfortunate man was immediately assailed with repeated stabs from a poniard, and he at length fell, after a few feeble and ineffectual struggles, senseless, and apparently lifeless, at the feet of his assassins. A considerable time elapsed ere, by the fortuitous entrance of a stranger, he was discovered in this dreadful situation; when it was found that the assassins, having first helped themselves to an almost incredible amount of money, had fled, without any thing being left by which a clew might have been obtained to their retreat.