CHAPTER XVII.

In life it is difficult to say who do you the most mischief--enemies
with the worst intentions, or friends with the best.

The conference between Mr. Rugge and Mr. Losely terminated in an
appointment to meet, the next day, at the village in which this story
opened. Meanwhile Mr. Rugge would return to his "orphans," and arrange
performances in which for some days they might dispense with a father's
part. Losely, on his side, undertook to devote the intervening hours to
consultation with a solicitor to whom Mr. Rugge recommended him as to the
prompt obtaining of legal powers to enforce the authority he asserted
himself to possess. He would also persuade Mrs. Crane to accompany him
to the village and aid in the requisite investigations; entertaining a
tacit but instinctive belief in the superiority of her acuteness. "Set a
female to catch a female," quoth Mr. Rugge.

On the day and in the place thus fixed the three hunters opened their
chase. They threw off at the Cobbler's stall. They soon caught the same
scent which had been followed by the lawyer's clerk. They arrived at
Mrs. Saunders's; there the two men would have been at fault like their
predecessor. But the female was more astute. To drop the metaphor Mrs.
Saunders could not stand the sharp cross-examination of one of her own
sex. "That woman deceives us," said Mrs. Crane on leaving the house."
They have not gone to London. What could they do there? Any man with a
few stage juggling tricks can get on in country villages but would be
lost in cities. Perhaps, as it seems he has got a dog,--we have found
out that from Mrs. Saunders,--he will make use of it for an itinerant