"Yes, ma'am,--gone where?"

"Lunnon."

"Really--very likely. By the train or on foot?"

"On foot, I s'pose."

"Thank you, ma'am. If you should see them again, or hear where they are,
oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma'am, Mr.
Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,--eminent solicitor. He has something of
importance to communciate to Mr. Waife."

"Yes, sir,--a lawyer; I understand." And as of all ratlike animals in
the world Mrs. Saunders had the ignorance to deem a lawyer was the most
emphatically devouring, she congratulated herself with her whole heart on
the white lies she had told in favour of the intended victims.

The black-coated gentleman having thus obeyed his instructions and
attained his object, nodded, went his way, and regained the fly which he
had left at the turnstile. "Back to the inn," cried he, "quick: I must
be in time for the three o'clock train to London."

And thus terminated the result of the great barrister's first
instructions to his eminent solicitor to discover a lame man and a little
girl. No inquiry, on the whole, could have been more skilfully
conducted. Mr. Gotobed sends his head clerk; the head clerk employs the
policeman of the village; gets upon the right track; comes to the right
house; and is altogether in the wrong,--in a manner highly creditable to