And yet, the idea that something might be lost by not heeding the letter, came stealing in upon him, and checking in a small degree the delight he felt at being too smart for the doctor. But this thought was instantly pushed aside. Of course, Bunting was not so "green," to use one of his favourite words, as to go on a fool's errand to New York. Five or six months afterward, Bunting, while in the city on business, happened to meet Doctor Grimes. "How are you, doctor?" said he, grasping the hand of the physician, and smiling with one of the smiles peculiar to his face when he felt that he had played off a capital joke on somebody. "I'm well, Mr. Bunting. And how are you?" replied the doctor. "First-rate--first-rate!" and Bunting rubbed his hands. Then he added, with almost irrepressible glee-- "You wasn't sharp enough, last April, doctor." "Why so?" inquired Doctor Grimes. "You didn't succeed in getting me to the city on a fool's errand." "I don't understand you, Mr. Bunting," said the doctor seriously. "Wilde & Lyon, Pearl Street--something to my advantage. Ha?" The doctor looked puzzled. "You needn't play the innocent, doctor. Its no use. I sent you on a fool's errand to New York; and it was but natural that you should seek to pay me back in my own coin. But I was too wide awake for you entirely. It takes a sharp man to catch me." "You're certainly too wide awake for me now," said Doctor Grimes. "Will you please be serious and explain yourself." "Last April a year, you received a letter from New York, to the effect that if you would call at a certain place in Wall Street, you would hear something to your advantage?" "I did," replied the doctor. "Well." "I called, accordingly, and received information which has proved greatly to my advantage." "What?" Bunting looked surprised. "The gentleman upon whom I called was a leading director in ---- Hospital, and in search of a Resident Physician for that establishment. I now fill that post." "Is it possible?" Bunting could not conceal his surprise, in which something like disappointment was blended. "And you did not write a similar letter to me last April?" he added. "I am above such trifling," replied the doctor, in a tone that marked his real feelings on that subject. "A man who could thus wantonly injure and insult another for mere sport, must have something bad about him. I should not like to trust such a one." "Good morning, doctor," said Bunting. The two gentlemen bowed formally and parted. If the doctor did not send the letter, from whom could it have come? This was the question that Bunting asked himself immediately. But no satisfactory answer came. He was puzzled and uncomfortable. Moreover, the result of the doctor's errand to New York--which had proved any thing but a fool's errand--was something that he could not understand. "I wonder if I hadn't better call on Wilde & Lyon?" said he to himself, at length. "Perhaps the letter was no trick, after all."