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 in the grate. This proved a more successful arrangement and a miniature conflagration took place. We were watching it with mingled emotions, when a rap at the door made us start like conspirators, and in walked Ned Randall.

"Good for you, fellows!" he sang out. "I thought you wouldn't have turned in yet. It takes an Eastern man to sit up till bedtime"; and he settled himself comfortably beneath the genial rays of the gas burner. We had: up some lager, lighted our pipes, and got things quite comfortable and homelike.

Ned was turning over some books and papers on the table, when suddenly he remarked, à propos of nothing:

"By the way, Brunt, Mrs. Ellerton tells me that you know her niece's namesake, the author of Spoils."

"Yes, worse luck to it" John blurted out, "I know her."

"I suppose people bore you to death about her."