ain't Mr. Ferris!"

"If it ain't Mr. Ferris--what then?" asked Varney. "For, madam, I assure
you that it ain't."

The woman, taken aback by this denial, only stared and had no reply
ready. But the young man, walking on, was set to thinking by this second
encounter, and presently he mused: "I'm somebody's blooming double,
that's what. I wonder whose."

And on that word, as though to get an answer to his speculation, he
suddenly halted and turned.

He had now progressed nearly a block from the buxom young woman of the
grocery. For some time, even before that meeting, he had been aware of
light, steady footsteps behind him on the dark street, gaining on him.
By this time they had come very near; and now as he wheeled sharply,
with a vague anticipation of Peter's "old duck in a felt hat," he found
himself face to face with quite a different figure--that of a thin young
man whom he recognized.

"Bless us!" said Varney urbanely. "It's the student of manners again."

The pale young stranger stopped two paces away and gave back his look
with the utmost composure.

"Still on my studies," said he, in his flat tones--"though I doubt," he
added thoughtfully, "if that fully explains why I have followed you."

"Ah? Perhaps I may venture to ask what would explain it more fully?"