excitement, nor the seeing there of certain grey-headed clerks who, as was the case at the establishment of Septimus John Clifford & Son, carried out their allotted tasks daily without a hair's variation. There was his school, to be sure; contact there with many a comrade; friendships made and lost and regained; struggles for supremacy in such games as then were practised; and, on occasion, somewhat too frequently as his masters stated flatly, there were contests outside, such as that between Tom and the grocer's lad. That had been our hero's life, quiet and regular enough, as one must admit. But the result was that Tom had a dash and swiftness about him Alfonso would never possess, while here was an illustration which pointed to his quickness. Alfonso still lay bound by the thumbs and elbows: Tom was free, in the enjoyment of active movement. "Perhaps he's asleep," he thought, shaking the door again and calling without receiving an answer. "Anyway, I daren't make more noise, and there is nothing about with which I could hope to force the lock. It begins to look as if I'll have to go to those rascals and hold the lot of them up till they produce the key. How'd it do?" His finger went pensively to his forehead, while he stood in the passage thinking deeply. At the far end the noise in the supper chamber had become even greater. There were shouts as well as laughter now, and once a sudden stamping, as if one of the gang had risen to his feet and was indulging in a _pas seul_, with which to enliven his comrades. "Let's get along to the farther end and see what's there. Ah, another room! Locked? No, open. No key, though, and the place as dirty as the others." He lifted the guttering candle overhead and inspected his surroundings. The room was empty, completely stripped of furniture. As a matter of fact the house itself was an empty one which this rascally gang had appropriated, taking full advantage of the times. A raid on neighbouring houses at the moment of the French retreat and the coming of the British had stocked certain of the rooms, while the owner must have been absent, else there would have been enquiries. Then, too, by staring out of the window, Tom made the discovery that the dwelling was situated at the end of a narrow yard, there being stabling on either hand. It blocked this far end, while opposite there was a low, arched exit leading into one of the minor streets of Madrid. "Just the sort of crib for such fellows. No one likely to come into the yard unless they had actual business here; and since these troubles started I expect few have been able to keep horses. The French cavalry, of whom there have been thousands swarming through the city, will have snapped up every atom of forage, and made horsekeeping an expensive and impossible thing for most inhabitants. So it's the place of all others for such a gang. Perhaps it'll suit me just as well too. Now I wonder."