"No, I suppose you never have," replied Davenport, dryly. "But what
character would you infer from his penmanship?"

"Well,--I don't know." Put to the test, Larcher was at a loss. "An
educated person, I should think; even scholarly, perhaps. Fastidious,
steady, exact, reserved,--that's about all."

"Not very much," said Davenport, taking back the sheet. "You merely
describe the handwriting itself. Your characterization, as far as it
goes, would fit men who write very differently from this. It fits me,
for instance, and yet look at my angular scrawl." He held up a specimen
of his own irregular hand, beside the elegant penmanship of the note,
and Larcher had to admit himself a humbug as a graphologist.

"But," he demanded, "did my description happen to fit that particular
man--Francis Turl?"

"Oh, more or less," said Davenport, evasively, as if not inclined to give
any information about that person. This apparent disinclination increased
Larcher's hidden curiosity as to who Francis Turl might be, and why
Davenport had never mentioned him before, and what might be between the
two for settlement.

Davenport put Turl's writing back into the drawer, but continued to
regard his own. "'A vile cramped hand,'" he quoted. "I hate it, as I have
grown to hate everything that partakes of me, or proceeds from me.
Sometimes I fancy that my abominable handwriting had as much to do with
alienating a certain fair inconstant as the news of my reputed
unluckiness. Both coming to her at once, the combined effect was too