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 and gathered your references together. There are scores of scoundrels in this big city, Philip, who make a business of becoming versed in the looks, friends, history, every thing, of respectable men on purpose to make use of their information to swindle other persons."

"I've heard that," said Philip, ruefully; "but I never expected to find out how neatly it could be tried upon me."

Mr. Hilliard laughed. Nobody expected it. "Of course, the mainspring of his fraud was my failure to get aboard the train. After he was certain that I had not kept to my plan he marched up to you. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' is the motto of a blackleg. The game was in his hands. He must have dreaded my possible turning-up all the time he devoted himself to you; but practice in such acting makes perfect. All his care after the first instance lay in seeming perfectly at ease with you. That most lucky falling into Mr. Fox's cellar separated you and cut the fraud short. He must have raged when he found that you failed to get aboard the train!"

"There were other fellows on it," said Philip. "In the crowd hurrying to it when the whistle