the prisoner. You must explain, as if it were your own discovery, what I have just shown you. When you repeat all this to him with these indications, I am sure he will release the cashier. Prosper Bertomy, the accused cashier, must be free before I begin my work.”

"I understand, patron. But shall I let M. Patrigent see that I suspect another than the banker or the cashier?"

« Certainly. Justice demands that you follow up the case. M. Patrigent will charge you to watch Prosper; reply that you will not lose sight of him. I assure you that he will be in good hands."

"And if he asks news of - Mademoiselle Gypsy?"

M. Lecoq hesitated for a moment.

"You will say to him," he said finally, "that you have decided, in the interest of Prosper, to place her in a house where she can watch some one whom you suspect."

The joyous Fanferlot rolled the photograph, took his hat, and prepared to leave. M. Lecoq detained him by a gesture:- «I have not finished," he said. "Do you know how to drive a carriage and take care of a horse ?"

Why, patron, you ask me that -an old rider of the Bouthor Circus ? »

"Very well. As soon as the judge has dismissed you, return home, and prepare a wig and livery of a valet de chambre of the first class; and having dressed, go with this letter to the Agency on the Rue Delorme."

"But, patron-"

"There are no buts,' my boy; for this agent will send you to M. Louis de Clameran, who needs a new valet de chambre, his own having left yesterday evening."

"Excuse me if I dare say that you are deceived. Clameran will not agree to the conditions: he is no friend of the cashier."

"How you always interrupt me," said M. Lecoq, in his most imperative tones. "Do only what I tell you, and let everything else alone. M. Clameran is not a friend to Prosper. I know that. But he is the friend and protector of Raoul de Lagors. Why? Who can explain the intimacy of these two men of such different ages? We must know this. We must also know who is M. Louis de Clameran-this forge-master who lives in Paris and never goes to his own factories! A jolly dog who has taken it into his head to live at the Hôtel du Louvre and who mingles

in the whirling crowd, is difficult to watch. Through you, I shall have my eye on him. He has a carriage; you will drive it; and in the easiest way you will know his acquaintances, and be able to give me an account of his slightest proceedings."

"You shall be obeyed, patron."

"Still another word. M. De Clameran is very irritable and suspicious. You will be introduced to him as Joseph Dubois. He will ask for your recommendations. Here are three, showing that you have served the Marquis de Sairmeuse, the Count de Commarin, and your last place-the house of the Baron de Wortschen, who has just gone to Germany. Keep your eyes open, be correct, and watch his movements. Serve well, but without excess of manner. But don't be too cringing, for that would arouse suspicion."

"Make yourself easy, patron: now, where shall I report ? » "I will come to see you every day. Until you have an order, don't step inside of this house: you might be followed. If anything unforeseen occurs, send a dispatch to your wife, and she will advise me. Now go; and be prudent."

The door shut behind Fanferlot, and M. Lecoq passed quickly into his bedroom.

In the twinkling of an eye he stripped off all traces of the official detective chief, the starched cravat, the gold spectacles, and the wig, which when removed released the thick black hair.

The official Lecoq disappeared; the true Lecoq remained, a person that no one knew,—a handsome young man with brilliant eyes and a resolute manner.

Only a moment was he visible. Seated before a dressingtable, on which were spread a greater array of paints, essences, rouge, cosmetics, and false hair than is required for a modern belle, he began to substitute a new face for the one accorded him by nature.

He worked slowly, handling his little brushes with extreme care, and in about an hour had achieved one of his periodical masterpieces. When he had finished, he was no longer Lecoq: he was the stout gentleman with the red whiskers, not recognized by Fanferlot.

"There," he exclaimed, giving a last glance in the mirror, “I have forgotten nothing; I have left nothing to chance. All my threads are tied, and I can progress. I hope the Squirrel will

not lose time."

But Fanferlot was too joyous to squander a moment. He did not run,- he flew along the way toward the Palais de Justice and M. Patrigent the judge.

At last he had the opportunity of demonstrating his own superior perspicacity.

It never occurred to him that he was striving to triumph through the ideas of another man. The greater part of the world is content to strut, like the jackdaw, in peacock's feathers.

The result did not blight his hopes. If M. Patrigent was not altogether convinced, he at least admired the ingenuity of the proceeding.

"This is what I will do," he said in dismissing Fanferlot: "I will present a favorable report to the council chamber, and tomorrow, most likely, the cashier will be released."

Immediately he began to write one of those terrible decisions of "Not Proven," which restores liberty to the accused man, but not honor; which says that he is not guilty, but which does not declare him innocent:·

"Whereas, against the prisoner Prosper Bertomy sufficient charges do not exist, in accordance with Article 128 of the Criminal Code, we declare there are no grounds at present for prosecution against the aforesaid prisoner: we therefore order that he be released from the prison where he is now detained, and set at liberty by the jailer," etc.

When this was finished, M. Patrigent remarked to his registrar Sigault:-"Here is one of those mysterious crimes which baffle justice! This is another file to be added to the archives of the record office." And with his own hand he wrote upon the outside the official number, "File No. 113."

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'

BÉNITO PEREZ GALDÓS

(1845-)

BY WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP

બ

I

HE contemporary school of Spanish fiction dates from about the revolution of 1868, which drove out Isabel II. and brought in a more liberal form of government. Without this revolution, it would scarcely have found opportunity for the free expression of opinion and the bold critical tone towards ancient institutions which are among its leading characteristics. It is a fresh stirring of the human intellect, a distinctly new product, and a valuable contribution to the world's literature. It has affiliation with the Russian, the English, and other vital modern movements in fiction, and yet it can by no means be confused with that of any other country. Its method is realistic; but one of its leading figures, De Pereda, a strong delineator of rural life, protests, as to him and his works, against the use of the word,-"if," he says vigorously, "it means to rank me under the triumphal French banner of foulsmelling realism." That is to say, they consider the best material for fiction to be the better and sweeter part of life and its higher aspirations, and not that coarse part of it to which the French would seem to have devoted an undue amount of attention. The reader of Anglo-Saxon origin approaches this fiction with ease and sympathy; he has not to acquire any new point of view in order to understand it, nor to unlearn any wonted standards of taste or morals.

An informing Spanish critic, Emilia Pardo Bazan, herself a novelist of talent, points out that the present Spanish school cannot be said to have a "yesterday," but only "a day before yesterday." She means that it has skipped a certain interval, and connects itself with remoter, and not with recent, tradition. It really comes down from a time antedating even the great "Golden Age." It takes its rise in the wonderful naturalness of the 'Celestina,' a quaint "tragi-comedy"> of the year 1499. It bears a close relationship, next, to Don Quixote and to the "Novelas Picarescas," the stories of amusing knaves in very low life, of which 'Lazarillo de Tormes' and 'Guzman de Alfarache' are the best examples, and that French imitation, Gil

Blas,' better than the originals. A period of very stiff Classicism in the eighteenth century, and of extravagant Romanticism in the beginning of the nineteenth, followed, constituting the omitted "yesterday"; and then arrived the vigorous literature of the present time, here in question. The qualities of truth to nature, practical good sense, genuine humor, and play of imagination, have nearly always. characterized Spanish fiction and thesc qualities seem possessed by the contemporary novelists in a higher degree than ever before. The Picaresque or Rogue stories seem to be their naturalness admitted -a mere string of disconnected adventures, written to the taste of a period that had not the habit of keeping its attention fixed upon anything long; and we scarcely know any leading character more intimately at the end than at the beginning. As against this, we have now complete and lengthy novels, in which situations and characters are all worked out upon a symmetrical plan, and in which the conclusions generally follow like those of fate; that is to say, they are not arbitrary, but inevitably result from the conditions and circumstances given.

So far as there is English influence in this literature, it may be said to be more in the form of example than as a direct component. It has given the Spanish movement courage and persistence, to see the same ideals elsewhere affording profit and pleasure to millions of men. Otherwise it is a mere coloring, a superficial trace. In particular, Pérez Galdós is fond of introducing English characters. Some of them have the Dickens-like trait of a beaming, exuberant benevolence, and the athletic parson in 'Gloria' who risks his life pulling out to the rescue of a wrecked steamer is like Barrie's Little Minister. Many of his leading characters are of that mixed blood, at Cadiz and elsewhere in the South, where one parent is English and the other Spanish, and the offspring have had the advantage of an education in England. He admires English types and ways, and yet with a reluctance too; which brings it about that they are generally introduced subject to considerable satire and mockery. English steadiness and thrift,-yes, very well; but he has a lingering tenderness still for Spanish levity and improvidence. In 'Halma,' all the Marquis de Feramor's children have English names, as Sandy» (Alexandrito), "Frank" (Paquito), and "Kitty" (Catalanita). The Marquis has been a student at Cambridge, and he imports into his career in Spanish politics the thorough study of the question at issue, the conservative temper and abhorrence of extremes, and the correct "good form» of some finished English statesman. These ideas of English policy and conservatism are talked over again, in the tertulias of the amusing family in 'El Amigo Manso,' who have come back wealthy from Cuba, the head of the household with the purpose of going into Parliament