in shape and the way in which it is set on, which indicate a frank, open, and courageous nature. Were it not for a little over-attention to dress, there is no “snobbery” about him; but there is a little too much velvet on his paletot, and his watch trinkets are somewhat in excess, not to say that the gold head of his cane is ostentatiously large and striking. This is Captain Ludlow Paten, a man about town, known to and by everybody, very much asked about in men's circles, but never by any accident met in ladies' society. By very young men he is eagerly sought after. It is one of the best things coming of age has in its gift is to know Paten and be able to ask him to dine. Older ones relish him full as much; but his great popularity is with a generation beyond that again: the mediaevals, who walk massively and ride not at all; the florid, full-cheeked, slightly bald generation, who grace club windows of a morning and the coulisses at night. These are his “set,” _par excellence_, and he knows them thoroughly. As for himself or his family, no one knows, nor, indeed, wants to know anything. The men he associates with chiefly in life are all “cognate numbers,” and these are the very people who never trouble their heads about a chance intruder amongst them; and although some rumor ran that his father was a porter at the Home Office, or a tailor at Blackwall, none care a jot on the matter: they want him; and he could n't be a whit more useful if his veins ran with all the blood of all the Howards. There is a story of him, however, which, though I reveal to you, is not generally known. He was once tried for a murder. It was a case of poisoning in Jersey, where the victim was a well-known man of the Turf, and who was murdered by the party he had invited to spend a Christmas with him. Paten was one of the company, and included in the accusation. Two were banged; Paten and another, named Collier, acquitted. Paten's name was Hunt, but he changed it at once, and, going abroad, entered the Austrian service, where, in eight years, he became a lieutenant. This was enough for probation and rank, and so he returned to England as Captain Ludlow Paten. Stocmar, of course, knew the story: there were half a dozen more, also, who did, but they each and all knew that poor Paul was innocent; that there was n't a fragment of evidence against him; that he lost--actually lost--by Hawke's death; that he was carried tipsy to bed that night two hours before the murder; that he was so overcome the next morning by his debauch that he was with difficulty awakened; that the coroner thought him a downright fool, he was so stunned by the event; in a word, though he changed his name to Paten, and now wore a tremendous beard, and affected a slightly foreign accent, these were disguises offered up to the mean prejudices of the world rather than precautions of common safety and security.