one of the greatest financiers in the world; yesterday he dealt in millions, had scores of carriages and hundreds of servants, paid fabulous prices for rare gems and pictures, and provided funds for mighty wars; to-day he is debating whether he can afford an eighteen-penny dinner. The man with an overhanging forehead, who strides onward with teeth closely set, and the fingers of whose hands are continually clinching and unclinching, is the head of a secret society whose members number hundreds of thousands, and whose deed of blood shall next week convulse the world with horror. We could dwell long upon this fascinating theme, but our business is with M. Felix, and we must not wander from him. "As we have already stated, we were the first to give the public the intelligence of his strange disappearance, and so intense was the interest the news excited that our printing-machines could not supply one-fourth of the demand for the various editions of our journal. The letters we received upon the subject would form a curious chapter in a new 'Curiosities of Literature.' "'Dear sir' (wrote one correspondent), 'you speak of the disappearance of the body of M. Felix as an unparalleled incident. Allow me to correct you, and from my own experience to furnish your readers with an identical case. It is now ten years ago since I formed the acquaintance of a gentleman of great attainments and peculiar habits, and whose nationality was always a matter of curiosity with me. Once or twice I delicately approached the subject, but he skilfully evaded it, and I did not feel warranted in pressing it. He was a wonderful chess-player, an accomplished linguist, and his knowledge of the niceties of every new discovery in science was simply marvellous. He had only one failing--he drank and smoked too much. In those days I also was a free liver. We were both single men, I certainly, he presumably; there are topics upon which it is good breeding to preserve a friendly delicacy. We met frequently, and dined together at least twice a week, at my expense. He was a good judge of wine and liquor, and very choice in his food. Being much superior to me in this respect, I invariably left it to him to decide where to dine and to arrange the courses. Perhaps occasionally we took half a bottle of wine too much, but that is neither here nor there. It was no one's business but our own. He took a peculiar interest in all new inventions, and was in the habit of throwing out hints of an extraordinary invention of his own which one day was to revolutionize the world. He told me very little of his discovery of which anyone could make use, but he was so jealous of his secret that he bound me down to solemn secrecy on the point; and I trust I am too much of a gentleman to violate the confidence he reposed in me. I may, however, without scruple, reveal that his invention related to combustion. One evening, when we had arranged to dine as usual together at the Royal,