"Not, marm?" I answered, with quite innocent surprise. "Vy, ere is her wery tail;" and I held up the mutilated extremity for her closer inspection. The lady was not, however, to be convinced even by that evidence; and as the gentleman soon became impatient of my persistence, and hinted very intelligibly that he had a mind to hasten my passage down stairs with the toe of his boot, I, having made the best possible use of my eyes during the short interview, scrambled up the dog and basket, and departed. "No female relative or acquaintance hasn't he?" was my exulting thought as I gained the road. "And yet if that is not M. le Breton's picture between those of the husband and wife, I am a booby, and a blind one." I no longer in the least doubted that I had struck a brilliant trail; and I could have shouted with exultation, so eager was I not only to retrieve my, as I fancied, somewhat tarnished reputation for activity and skill, but to extricate the plundered firm from their terrible difficulties; the more especially as young M. Bellebon, with the frankness of his age and nation, had hinted to me--and the suddenly tremulous light of his fine expressive eyes testified to the acuteness of his apprehensions--that his marriage with a long-loved and amiable girl depended upon his success in saving the credit of his house. That same evening, about nine o'clock, M. Levasseur, expensively, but withal snobbishly attired, left Oak Cottage, walked to Edmonton, hailed a cab, and drove off rapidly towards town, followed by an English swell as stylishly and snobbishly dressed, wigged, whiskered, and moustached as himself: this English swell being no other than myself, as prettily metamorphosed and made up for the part I intended playing as heart could wish.