"Only this moment; I ran home as fast as I could," she replied.

"Why, you little blockhead, you should have told me that at first," I
cried, snatching up my hat, and darting away in pursuit of the yellow
waistcoat, whose acquaintance I not unnaturally coveted, inasmuch as a
man who, for the first time, admits a stranger into his house, on the
footing of permanent residence, desires generally to know a little more
about him than that his name is Smith.

The place indicated was only, as we say, a step away; and as yellow
waistcoat was fat, and used a crutch, I calculated on easily overtaking
him. I was, however, disappointed; crutch, waistcoat, and all had
disappeared. I climbed to the top of the wall, and from this commanding
point of view made a sweeping observation--but in vain. I returned
home, cursing my ill-luck, the child's dulness, and the fat old
fellow's activity.

I need hardly say that Mr. Smith, in all his aspects, moral, social,
physical, and monetary, formed a fruitful and interesting topic of
speculation during dinner. How many phantom Smiths, short and long, stout
and lean, ill-tempered and well-tempered--rich, respectable, or highly
dangerous merchants, spies, forgers, nabobs, swindlers, danced before us,
in the endless mazes of fanciful conjecture, during that anxious
_tête-à-tête_, which was probably to be interrupted by the arrival of the
gentleman himself.

My wife and I puzzled over the problem as people would over the possible
_dénouement_ of a French novel; and at last, by mutual consent, we came
to the conclusion that Smith could, and would turn out to be no other