I left the house with him, and we proceeded to Broadway, and turned down, talking over many things, and managing to agree pretty well upon them all. At last, as we neared 8th Street, I thought I saw that young Payne was a little uneasy, as if wishing to shake me off; and I said to him, "Well, good evening, Mr. Payne," offering him my hand. "My course leads this way," pointing to the left, and turning in that direction. "I suppose you keep down farther." "Yes," said he, "I am going on farther," and bowing me an "adieu, for the while," he passed on, and I kept a good look out for him, for I "scented" that he expected to meet somebody not far from that point. Dropping into a saloon near by, where a friend of mine was engaged, I left my "stove-pipe" hat, and pulled from my pocket a thin "slouched" hat, which I carried for occasion, and taking the opposite side of the street from Payne, kept him in sight till he passed into the New York Hotel, when I crossed over, and entered. I had hardly done so before he, returning from the back portion of the hall in company with another, passed by me. His companion was evidently telling him a funny story, for he laughed quite loudly, and was hitting Payne, as if in glee, upon his shoulder. I knew my man, both by his voice and face, which was partly concealed by the manner in which he, at this moment, had fixed his hat upon his head. He was unmistakably Blanchard, alias "Collins," and my blood was up. Blanchard, the villain, had ruined the husband of my cousin Elizabeth ----. "Bettie," as we familiarly called her, was one of the sweetest women I ever saw,--my most cherished cousin, of whom I was proud in every sense,--and the griefs which bore her down, in the ruin of her husband, pierced my heart, and I resolved to be avenged, if possible, upon this villain Blanchard, who had worked her husband's downfall, and robbed him of every dollar. The husband had been at one time in the enjoyment of a lucrative trade, as a merchant of woollen goods, and had a fine standing with some of the best manufacturers in Rhode Island and elsewhere, and was on what seemed the sure road to a great fortune, when he unluckily fell into the clutches of Blanchard. Indeed, I too had suffered by Blanchard, to no small extent for me, having been indorser of some of my cousin's paper, which went to protest, and which I had at last to pay. I do not allow myself to cherish enmity against my fellow-man. The detective soon learns to not be surprised at finding the man of the best reputation frequently involved in crime, and he comes to look with charity upon the faults, and even the crimes, of his fellow-men. Comparatively, men do not, in society, differ at heart so greatly as the uninitiated might imagine. But few men are proof against the wiles of "circumstances." No man can really tell what he would have done, or would not have done, had he been placed in these or those circumstances by which some other man has