“Nothing,” replied Bar; “only do you see that tall, French-looking party, three tables away down the aisle, there on the right?” “I see him,” said Val. “You can never tell anything by the looks of those foreigners. I took one for a gambler a while ago, and he turned out to be a Count somebody. Maybe that’s a Count. Do you know him?” “Wait and see if he stays to finish his dinner,” said Bar. “I don’t want him to speak to me.” The stranger, if his exterior had been reärranged to suit, might have resembled a gentleman by the name of Prosper, but, just then and there, he was managing a very different character, for his former plans, as we have seen, had been badly broken up, and he was for the present, not only alone in the world, but anxious to remain so. His position was “sidewise” to that of the two friends, and there was no one between them. Suddenly it seemed to him as if a voice close to his ear exclaimed: “Russia leather, eh?” He cast a quick and startled glance around him, but failed to discover the source of the remark. “It’s a bad fit,” said the voice again, but this time the stranger merely shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing else in it,” was the next remark of his mysterious neighbor. A moment more and he heard: “Then he made nothing by it?” “No, the doctor got it back.” “Do such fellows come here?” One after another the words, in varying tones and seemingly close beside him, added their harrowing suggestions, and the cold sweat was beginning to stand out on the forehead of the unfortunate “foreigner.” He would not have looked around him for the world, but he stealthily reached out to the hat-rack for his hat and cane, and was swiftly gliding out of the front door, when a watchful waiter intercepted him with the polite suggestion that he had better pay for his dinner first. He was glad enough to do that, nor did he once look back from the “pay-desk.” It was not likely he would soon again venture into that precise restaurant. “Bar, my boy,” said Val, “who was it talking with that chap?” “Anything more, sir?” suddenly inquired the voice of the waiter, who had attended them, just behind Val’s chair. “You mustn’t make a pig of yourself.” Val wheeled angrily, to find that not a soul was standing near him. “Bar!” he exclaimed, turning back, “did you hear that? Did he mean me?” “Oh, hush, and take a pill.” It was the waiter’s voice again, closer than before, and Val sprang to his feet indignantly. “Don’t step on me! Here I am, down here. Take your foot off. Oh, what a mouth!” Val had lifted his feet quickly enough, but involuntarily, but now he gazed earnestly in the motionless face of his new friend. “Bar Vernon, are you a ventriloquist!” “Of course he is,” exclaimed the voice on the floor. “Don’t you see how long his ears are? Take your foot off. There, now I can die in peace. Good-bye!” A long, choking sort of gurgle followed, but Val’s face was all one radiance of triumphant fun.