He took a silver quarter of a dollar from the handful of small change still mechanically extended, and, turning to a table which held a tray with glasses, he played the trick with the goblet and the bit of money that had interested the captain of the ill-fated steamboat on the night when Lucien Royce perished so miserably to the world. It was with a good-natured feigning of interest that the young men pressed round, at first, all willing to aid the salving of the honest pride which their offering had evidently so lacerated. But this gave way to an excitement that had rarely been paralleled at New Helvetia Springs, as feat succeeded feat. The juggler was soon eager to get away, having served his purpose of eluding their bounty, but this was more difficult than he had anticipated. He feared troublesome questions, but beyond a “Say, how in thunder did you learn all this?” there were none; and the laconic response, “From a traveling fellow,” seemed to allay their curiosity. After a little he forgot their ill-starred benevolence; his spirits expanded in this youthful society, the tone of which was native to him, and from which he had long been an outcast. He began to reflect subacutely that the idea of a fugitive from justice would not occur to men of their social position so readily as to the mountaineers, who were of a more restricted field of speculation and limited knowledge of the world. He might seem to these summer sojourners, perhaps, a man educated beyond his prospects in life and his station, and ashamed of both; such types are not altogether unknown. Or perhaps he might be rusticating in this humble fashion, being a person of small means, or a man with some malady, attracted here like others in search of health, but of a lower grade of society. “For they tell me,” he said satirically to himself, “that such people have lungs and livers like the best of us!” He might be a native touched by some unhallowed ambition, and, having tried his luck in the outer world, flung back upon his despised beginnings and out of a job. He might be the schoolmaster in the Cove, of a vastly higher grade than the native product, doubtless, but these young fellows were uninterested and unobservant, and hardly likely to evolve accurate distinctions. He felt sure that the idea of crime would occur to these gay butterflies the most remotely of all the possible solutions of the anomalies of his presence and his garb. He began to give himself up unconsciously to the mild pleasure of their association; their chatter, incongruously enough, revived his energies and solaced his feelings like some suave balm. But he experienced a quick repulsion and a start of secret terror when two or three, having consulted apart for a few moments, joined the group again, and called upon him to admire their “cheek,” as they phrased it, in the proposition they were about to make,--no less than that he should consent to perform some of his wonderful