"I tell you frankly," he privately said to the President, "I go into
this purely for reasons of my own."

The next day, a little after nightfall, one might have descried this
little man slipping along the rear fence of the Poquelin place,
preparatory to vaulting over into the rank, grass-grown yard, and
bearing himself altogether more after the manner of a collector of rare
chickens than according to the usage of secretaries.

The picture presented to his eye was not calculated to enliven his mind.
The old mansion stood out against the western sky, black and silent. One
long, lurid pencil-stroke along a sky of slate was all that was left of
daylight. No sign of life was apparent; no light at any window, unless
it might have been on the side of the house hidden from view. No owls
were on the chimneys, no dogs were in the yard.

He entered the place, and ventured up behind a small cabin which stood
apart from the house. Through one of its many crannies he easily
detected the African mute crouched before a flickering pine-knot, his
head on his knees, fast asleep.

He concluded to enter the mansion, and, with that view, stood and
scanned it. The broad rear steps of the veranda would not serve him; he
might meet some one midway. He was measuring, with his eye, the
proportions of one of the pillars which supported it, and estimating the
practicability of climbing it, when he heard a footstep. Some one
dragged a chair out toward the railing, then seemed to change his mind
and began to pace the veranda, his footfalls resounding on the dry
boards with singular loudness. Little White drew a step backward, got