His spirits began to rise again as the time for the exploit approached. He went about the house, surveying it with a critical eyeestimating the probability of Hester hearing anything-wondering if Lafleur would do it cleverly-making calm and careful preparations. He prized out two rails in the front garden at night; because the gate was always locked, and gentlemen do not like to be seen clambering over rails. He placed the ladder in readiness behind the waterbutt, where it could easily be found. He greased the window, to make it open noiselessly. He put oil into the lock of the press, when his father was at the bank. He ascertained that there was no moon on the fourteenth. He found out from a book on medicine what amount of morphia would send a man to sleep.

"And now," he said to himself, "I can't do any more. The old man shall have his draught. Lafleur shall do the trick. I will remove the ladder, and destroy evidence; and next day there will be the devil's own row! Ho! ho! ho!"

Dick shook his sides with silent laughter as he thought of his father's rage and despair at having been robbed.

"What if I rush to the rescue? Suppose I hear a noise, run downstairs with nothing on, but a pistol in my hand, fire at Lafleur just as he gets out of window, and rush to my father's assistance! What a funk Lafleur would be in."

But he abandoned the idea as, though extremely brilliant, too dangerous. His "pal" had a habit of carrying a revolver.

Impossible to tell from his behaviour that anything was in the wind. Careless and jovial by nature, he played his part without any acting. He had little anxiety about the robbery, because things were planned so

well.

As for misgivings, they had vanished. In place of them, he daily had before his eyes the picture of his father tearing his hair at the discovery; his own activity in the work of detection; and the imaginary searching of the house, including his own room, "by particular desire."

After all his experience of life, Dick was still only a boy, with the absence of moral principle which belongs to that time of life, all a boy's mischief, and all his fun. One of the best fellows in the world if he had his own way-one of the worst if anything came in his way. He was big, handsome, blackbearded. He had a soft and mellow voice.

He had gentle ways. He petted children. When he had the power, he helped people in distress. He laughed all day. He sang when he was not laughing. He fraternized with everybody. Men have been canonized for virtues fewer than these.

"I'll do it," said Mr. Mortiboy at night. He repeated it in the morning as he dressed. He stared very hard at Dick during breakfast. He sent for lawyer Battiscombe after breakfast, and repeated it to him.

"I'll do it at once," said the rich man,

"I have dissuaded you to the utmost of my power," said his lawyer. "It is a most irregular thing, Mr. Mortiboy. Think of King Lear."

"Mr. Battiscombe, do not insult my family," old Ready-money cried, in great wrath. "It is forty years since I saw 'King Lear' at the theatre, but I suppose it isn't much altered now. And may I ask if you mean to compare my son, my son Dick, with those-those-brazen hussies?"

"Well-well-of course not. I say no more. The instrument, sir, will be ready in a day or two, and you shall sign whenever you please."

"The sooner the better, Battiscombe. Let us be ready on the fourteenth: that is Dick's birthday. He will be three and thirty. Three and thirty! What a beautiful age! Ah! Battiscombe, what a man I was at three and thirty!"

He was, indeed, a man who denied himself all but the barest necessaries of life, and was already beginning to break his young wife's heart by neglect and meanness.

This was on the fifth of the month. There

yet wanted nine days to the completion of Mr. Mortiboy's design. He spent the interval in constant talk with Dick, who could not understand what it all meant.

"Let us walk in the garden, my son," said his father. "I want to talk to you."

The days were warm and sunny, and the garden had a south aspect. The old man, with his arms behind him, stooping and bent, with his eyes on the ground, paced to and fro on the gravel; while Dick, with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth, lounged beside him. A strange contrast, not of age only, but of disposition. As the mother, so the son. Dick's light and careless nature, and his love for spending rather than saving, came from poor Emily Melliship.

"I want to tell you, my boy," said the old man "because I know you are careful and saving, and have just ideas of Property how my great estate has been built up: how I have got Money."

He told him. A long story-it took many days to tell-a story of hardness, of mean artifice, of grinding the poor man's face, and taking advantage of the credulous man's weakness: a story which made Dick look down upon his father, as he shuffled beside him, with contempt and disgust.

"We're a charming family," he said to Lafleur one day-"a delightful family, my partner. I think, on the whole, that Roaring Dick is the best of the whole crew. Damn it all, Lafleur, I'd rather hang about gambling booths in Mexico; I'd rather loaf round a camp in California, and lay by for horses to steal; I'd rather live cheating those who would cheat you, and shooting those who would else shoot you, than live as my respected father and grandfather have lived. Why, man, there isn't an old woman in Market Basing who does not prophesy a bad end to money got in their way, and wonder why the bad end does not come."

"All very well," said Lafleur. "But I should like to have half a million of money." "Criminals!" growled Dick, pulling his beard. "They'd call me a criminal, I suppose, if they knew everything. Why don't they make laws for other kinds of criminals?" "My friend," his partner softly sighed, "do not, I implore you, begin your remembrances. Life is short, and ought not to be troubled with a memory at all."

"Perhaps it's as well as it is. By gad, we should all be in Chokee; and the virtuous ones, if there are any, would have an infernally disagreeable time of it, trying and sentencing. I should plead Insufficiency of income, and an Enormous appetite. What should you say?"

On the morning of the fourteenth of May, Dick received a note from Lafleur, informing him of his intention to execute their little design that evening. He twisted up the note and put it in the fire, with a chuckle of considerable enjoyment, thinking of his father's misery when he should find it out. Mr. Mortiboy was particularly lively that morning. He chattered incessantly, running from one subject to another in a nervous, excited way.

"Be in the house at three to-day, Dick,"

he said, solemnly. "A most important business is to be transacted, in which you are concerned. Mr. Ghrimes is coming."

"Very odd coincidence," thought Dick. "There's an important business coming off to night at ten, in which you are concerned." However, he only nodded, and said he would remember.

He spent his morning in completing the arrangements for the evening, so far as anything remained to be done. Then he went to the bank, as was his custom, and talked with the people who called on business. They all knew him by this time; and, when they had fought out their business with Ghrimes, liked to have ten minutes' talk with the great traveller, who dispensed his stories with so liberal a tongue.

At three o'clock, Mr. Ghrimes-punctual and methodical-arrived from the bank, and Mr. Battiscombe, with a blue bag, from his office. Mr. Mortiboy heard them, and led his son by the arm to the state-room-the parlour, which had not been used since the day of the funeral. Once more, as for an occasion of ceremony, wine and biscuits

were set out.

Mr. Mortiboy shook hands with all three, and stood on the hearth-rug, as he had stood when last they met together in that place. But this time his hand was on his son's shoulder, and his eyes turned from time to time upon him with a senile fondness.

"I am anxious," said Ghrimes, with a red face, "that you "-here he looked at Dick-" should know that I have done my best to dissuade Mr. Mortiboy from this step. I think it foolish and wrong. And I have told him so."

"You have, George Ghrimes-you have," said the old man.

"There is yet time, Mr. Mortiboy," urged his manager.

"Nonsense, nonsense."

Mr. Mortiboy made a sign to the lawyer, who produced a paper from his bag, and handed it to him.

"George Ghrimes," he began, "when my son Dick was supposed to be dead, John and Lydia Heathcote were my apparent heirs. Between them and their daughters -for, of course, I should not have fooled it away in memorial windows, and hospitals, and peacockery-would have been divided all my Property. I can understand their disappointment. But they must also feel for the joy of a father when he receives back a

to the fables and traditions of which he has an almost endless variety. Many of these are taken from the "Arabian Nights," but a great number are either local traditions or else fables that have been handed down from father to son. There is considerable wit and humour in them; and the clever trickery and cheating displayed by many of the characters appeal to the hearts of a people who regard deceit and deception as virtues. I have, therefore, selected some which must prove interesting, as illustrating to some extent the manners and morals of the Hindoo population, and are novel, as they have never, I believe, been translated before into the English tongue.

HOW THE JACKAL OUTWITTED THE TIGER. Once on a time, a she-jackal said to her husband

"My husband, it is very necessary that some place of habitation should be provided to shelter me and our expected progeny from the heat and the rain; remaining under a tree, or in the open jungle, would not be at all beneficial to the health.”

The husband at first somewhat "poohpoohed" this idea; but being slightly henpecked he gave in, and went off in search of a house. At last he returned, and told his wife that he had discovered a large and roomy abode, but that he regretted to say that there was one drawback, and that was that it was occasionally inhabited by a tiger. Mrs. Jackal, however, being in a very great hurry, and anxious to make everything comfortable, thought little or nothing of this, and immediately started off to the place pointed out by her husband. She found it a very large cavern, the floor of which was strewn with the bones of the tiger's victims. She certainly did not feel so comfortable as she might have done at the sight of these remains; but she soon regained her equanimity, and in a short time she brought into the world two fine little jackals.

One day the husband came running in, with his tail between his legs, and said—

"Oh, my wife, I have just seen the tiger who lives here. He is returning from a hunting expedition, in which he has evidently been unsuccessful, as he is very lean, and has a hungry, ugly look about him that bodes no good to us if he should see us."

On hearing this, the poor lady got very nervous; and summoning her infants to her side, commenced licking them in a very

tender manner. The distracted father sat down on his haunches, and began to think how best he could get out of the scrape he had got into. Most jackals similarly situated would have heaped reproaches and “I told you so's" on their wives; but this did nothing of the kind: he was a model husband. After having scratched his head well with his hind leg, to clear his brain, a brilliant idea struck him, which he immediately communicated to his faithful wife in the following words:

"As soon, dear wife, as you shall hear the footsteps of the tiger drawing near, seize both of our dear children by their ears, and bite them hard, so that they cry out. It may be painful to your feelings, but it is for their and your good. Immediately I hear their screams, I will call out to you, 'What are the little darlings crying for?" You will answer, 'Because they did not like the tiger they had for dinner yesterday; he was old and tough; and they beg you to get them another.' When the tiger hears this, he will be afraid, and will run away."

Soon a

Mrs. Jackal consented to this. low growl and the pattering of footsteps fell on her ear: the tiger was approaching.

The plan was successful in every way. As soon as the tiger heard the explanation of the children's cries, he said to himself—

"What kind of creatures can these be who live here? They must be enormous. Their very children live on tigers' flesh! I shall get out of this instanter, or they will kill me for food."

So he put his tail between his legs, and vanished. As he was running along, a monkey, who was sitting in a banyan tree, called out to him

"What are you running away for? You look awfully scared."

The tiger replied

"What business is that of yours? Shut up?"

But, on second thoughts, he told the monkey all he had heard, and with what enormous animals he supposed the cavern to be inhabited. The monkey replied

"Why, what a coward you are; there are only two jackals and their young there. Come with me, and I will show you that what I say is true."

So the monkey and the tiger went towards the cave. The jackal on seeing the tiger was grievously disappointed, as he had made sure he had frightened him away