I did not credit his story, to be sure; but still I was there duly, and found Williams, who pretended surprise as he came in with an officer (into whose keeping I had given him,--having called him before we left the shop,--on a charge of forgery, not telling him I knew the real state of the case), at not finding Ellsworth up to his appointment. But my story is running into too much detail. Suffice it that we got back to the hotel as speedily as we could, and a more delighted man than was Mr. Purvis, on the recovery of so much of his money, can hardly be imagined. He gave the watch, of course, into my keeping, and in spite of all my protestations, compelled me to receive a much larger sum than would have amply satisfied me. I pursued Ellsworth somewhat afterwards, visiting his "family" in Williamsburg, but I could not get track of him for a long while, when he turned up in another city, and I chanced to make him available in the detection of sundry other rogues. But that story is _sui generis_, and I must not mar it by a recital of a part here. As for the brave medical student (whose name I have purposely withheld), he became a fast friend of mine, and afterwards we had several adventures together, some of which I purpose to relate, should I at some other time feel more in the spirit to do so. Enough to know now, that he is, for his years, an eminent physician, with a large practice, in a district in the South, and married to a most beautiful woman, whose acquaintance he made while once playing the amateur detective. In some of these papers, perhaps, his name, if he permits, will be disclosed. Had he given himself to the business, I conceive that he could not have had a successful rival, as a detective, in the world. The same knowledge of human nature which the detective needs, cannot but serve the physician to great advantage. Mr. Purvis said that if he had wholly lost the thousand dollars, the lesson he had learned would have been cheaply bought. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING. --------------