The detective half smiled, his piercing eyes fixed reflectively on the fire. "I should be poorly able to support my pretensions, if I could not keep the circle of my acquaintance under my observation. I was informed of his arrival in town, upon my return from Brooklyn, and have known of his whereabouts since. I could tell you what he had for supper, if it would interest you." The uneasy feeling which I had several times experienced in Mr. Burton's society, came over me again. I spoke a little quickly: "I wonder if you have your secret agents--spirits of the air, or electricity, they might almost seem to be--hovering always on _my_ steps." He laughed, but not unpleasantly, looking me through with those steel-blue rays: "Would it trouble you to fancy yourself under surveillance?" "I never liked fetters, of any kind. I yield my choice of will and action to nobody. However, if any one finds satisfaction in playing the part of my shadow, I don't know that I shall suffer any restraint upon that account." "I don't think it would disturb you seriously," he said. "No one likes to be watched, Mr. Burton." "We are all watched by the pure and penetrating eye of the All-seeing One, and if we are not fearful before Him, whom need we shrink from?" I looked up to see whether it was the secret-police-agent who was preaching to me, or whether my host, in his power of varying the outer manifestations of his character, had not dropped the mystic star for the robe of the minister; he was gazing into the fire with a sad, absorbed expression, as if he saw before him a long procession of mortal crimes, walking in the night of earth, but, in reality, under the full brightness of infinite day. I had seen him before in these solemn, almost prophetic moods, brought on him by the revelation of some new sin, which seemed always in him to awaken regret, rather than the exultation of a detective bent on the successful results of his mission. So soft, so gentle he appeared then, I inwardly wondered that he had the sternness to inflict disgrace and exposure upon the "respectable" guilty--which class of criminals he was almost exclusively employed with--but I had only to reflect upon the admirable equipoise of his character, to realize that with him justice was what he loved best. For those who prowled about society in the garb of lambs and shepherd-dogs, seeking whom they might devour, and laying, perhaps, the proofs of guilt at the doors of the innocent, he had no mercy of the "let us alone" type. A little time we were silent; the dropping of an ember from the grate startled us. "Why do you think that James watches me? What does he watch me for?" I asked this, going back to the surprise I had felt when he made the remark. "You will know soon enough." It was useless for me to press the question, since he did not wish to be explicit.