sentenced to ten years at hard labor, and every Democrat in the State
cried, "I told you so." What had become of him after his release from
prison, nobody knew; some of the boarders said that he was living in the
west, or in Australia; others, that he was not living anywhere, unless
on the shores of perpetual torment. All agreed that the alleged second
Mrs. Surface had long since died--all, that is, but Klinker, who said
that she had only pretended to die in order to make a fade-away with the
gate receipts. For many persons believed, it seemed, that Surface, by
clever juggling of his books, had managed to "hold out" a large sum of
money in the enforced settlement of his affairs. At any rate, very
little of it ever came back to the family of the man who had put trust
in him, and that was why the daughter, whose name was Charlotte Lee
Weyland, now worked for her daily bread.

That Major Brooke's hearers found this story of evergreen interest was
natural enough. For besides the brilliant blackness of the narrative,
there was the close personal connection that all Paynterites had with
some of its chief personages. Did not the sister-in-law of John Randolph
Weyland sit and preside over them daily, pouring their coffee morning
and night with her own hands? And did not the very girl whose fortune
had been stolen, the bereft herself, come now and then to sit among
them, occupying that identical chair which Mr. Bylash could touch by
merely putting out his hand? Henry G. Surface's story? Why, Mrs.
Paynter's wrote it!

These personal bearings were of course lost upon Mr. Queed, the name
Weyland being utterly without significance to him. He left the table the
moment he had absorbed all the supper he wanted. In the hall he ran upon
Professor Nicolovius, the impressive-looking master of Greek at Milner's
Collegiate School, who, already hatted and overcoated, was drawing on