peeps through the keyhole, and says in good
English, "The Earl de Winkles may safely
speak out."

Then follows a dialogue, from which it
appears that the Earl or Compte de Winkles
had, eighteen months previously, lived in
a castle in the Orkneys, with nothing to
do but to amuse himself with the chase, his
horses and his farmers; but, ruined by the
loss of two merchant-ships which appear
not to have been insured at Lloyd's, and by
the roguery of the agent of his counting-house
in the Indies, he is now dependent for a
living on wagers and prizes gained by his
prodigious skill and strength. As a disguise
he had assumed the costume of his old friend
the Indian Prince; and, with the help of a
little burnt sienna, had been able to win in
one year three times as much money as he
required.

After this explanation, the Earl de Winkles
asked for his plaid inexprimable, and his
blue pilot coat; but declined to wash off the
sienna, lest he should be assassinated by the
members of the R. Y. S., whom he had
humbugged.

He looked over his agenda, rubbed out the
regatta of the Isle of Wight, and put down
fifteen hundred pounds profit; regretted that
he could not accept a challenge from Schriften
de Orientalis, to swim six times across the
Thames at Hungerford Bridge, because his
brown dye would infallibly be washed off. He
turned to " Match de cricket, between the
champions of Durham and Stockton," and swore that
he will forfeit his earldom if his bat did not
knock down all the " crickets " of the clan
Stockton, and so end the campaign by
winning two or three thousand guineas. Eight
days afterwards, the Yellow Prince was
proclaimed champion of the clan Durham; and
the old Barlett, on making up his accounts,
found a balance of eight thousand pounds, the
result of the transaction. The next day, the
Prince, washed white, resumed his title, and
sailed in the packet which plies between the
Newcastle and the Orkneys, for the Kirkwall.
On arriving at the Kirkwall, the Earl sent
Barlett to the post-office; and, mounting a
hired pony, galloped off to one of his farmers
who bears the peculiar name of Nichol
Dick.

"Mamma Edith," scream two marmots
(Anglicé kids), on seeing the ex-prince over
the hedge of the cottage, cantering up,
"here is Lord Winkles!"

Mistress Nichol, letting a pudding-pie,
which she holds in a cloth, fall into an
earthen pot, gives a cry of joy. Lord
Winkles enters, and shakes both the white
blue-veined hands of the pretty wife three
times. Mistress Nichol's hair, we are told in
an aside, was as red as a squirrel's, which
accounted for her hands being so white. Her
two interesting children bearing the truly
Scotch names of Mock and Gibby, hang on
the skirts of Lord Winkles' jacket, and take
possession of his whip. A dialogue follows
between the lord and Mistress Nichol Dick;
from which we learn that the farmer is seeking
gulls' eggs on the cliffs, that the lord wishes
him to discontinue so hazardous a pursuit,
and further, that the farmer's family were,
through the generosity of the lord, the
richest in the Orcades, and that the farm
itself was a model of cultivation.

The farmer returns, and he and the Earl
go out to look at the farm; but Lord Winkles
first presents the wife with a couple of
roleaus of guineas for distribution among the
children.

Soon after old Barlett arrives, all dusty
and unhappy-looking. He comes to say that
a forgotten creditor has turned up, and that
the next day Lord Winkles, who appears not
to have enjoyed the privilege of his order of
immunity from arrest would be lodged in
prison. Mistress Nichol Dick is quite astonished;
although she does not understand law, she
thought Lord Winkles—who had given her
husband the farm, as well as very large sums
of money—had been very rich. However,
she is only too happy to meet this French
edition of Caleb Balderston half-way. She
opens a drawer full of guineas, and offers to
sell fields and forests which must be valuable,
as they are more rare in the Orkneys
than hailstones are in Bengal.

Presently Lord Winkles returns in high
spirits; and, sitting down to table between
Mock and Gibby, amuses them while eating
heartily by conjuring-tricks and imitations of
the cries of animals; all the rest of the
company are sad and silent.

"Come," cries the lord, holding out his
glass to Nichol, " another glass of Porto.
Here's good luck to the farmers of Oxstall!"

After the inevitable Porto, he embraced
the children, and galloped away with Barlett
until they came to a burial-ground, where
they dismounted, " fasten their horses to a
clump of pines, whose tops were silvered by
the rays of the moon," and proceed to a
granite tomb. There the Lord Winkles
explains that in his youth he had accidentally
shot John, the father of the red-haired
Mistress Nichol, and that he felt bound to
ruin himself, in order to compensate the
daughter, who believes that the father had
shot himself.

The next day Mr. Nichol Dick—who
seems wonderfully well supplied with ready
money—appears with six hundred pounds to
pay off the inexorable creditor; but, at the
same moment, the eccentric peer rushes into
the room in a high state of excitement,
crying, " Barlett, I am a millionnaire: a letter
just received tells me that the real Prince
Trennenhir is dead, and has left me all his
fortune. Nichol, I shall give twenty-five
thousand pounds to Mock and Gibby. Ah,
what a famous thing it is to be rich!"
So saying, he faints away; while Barlett
murmurs, very sensibly, " If John had died