The fingers of Holcombe's hand moved and tightened around the butt of the pistol, the sweat sprang from the pores of his palm. He raised the revolver and pointed it. "My sin's on my own head,” he said. "Give me the money."

The older man glanced fearfully back of him at the open window, through which a sea-breeze moved the palms outside, so that they seemed to whisper together as though aghast at the scene before them. The window was three stories from the ground, and Allen's eyes returned to the stern face of the younger man. As they stood there there came to them the sound of some one moving in the hall, and of men's voices whispering together. Allen's face lit with a sudden radiance of hope, and Holcombe's arm moved uncertainly.

"I fancy," he said, in a whisper, "that those are my friends. They have some idea of my purpose, and they have come to learn more. If you call, I will let them in, and they will strangle you into silence until I get the money."

The two men eyed each other steadily, the older seeming to weigh the possible truth of Holcombe's last words in his mind. Holcombe broke the silence in a lighter tone.

'Playing the policeman is a new rôle to me," he said, "and I warn you that I have but little patience; and, besides, my hand is getting tired, and this thing is at full cock."

Allen, for the first time, lowered the box upon the table, and drew from it a bundle of notes bound together with elastic bandages. Holcombe's eyes lighted as brightly at the sight as though the notes were for his own private pleasures in the future.

"Be quick!" he said. "I cannot be responsible for the men outside.”

it over to me. I hope I have taken the most of what you have," he said, as he shoved the notes into his pocket; "but this is something. Now I warn you," he added, as he lowered the trigger of the revolver and put it out of sight, "that any attempt to regain this will be futile. I am surrounded by friends; no one knows you or cares about you. I shall sleep in my room to-night without precaution, for I know that the money is now mine. Nothing you can do will recall it. Your cue is silence and secrecy as to what you have lost and as to what you still have with you."

He stopped in some confusion, interrupted by a sharp knock at the door and two voices calling his name. Allen shrank back in terror.

You coward!" he hissed. "You prom ised me you'd be content with what you have." Holcombe looked at him in amazement. "And now your accomplices are to have their share too, are they?" the embezzler whispered, fiercely. "You lied to me; you mean to take it all."

Holcombe, for an auswer, drew back the bolt, but so softly that the sound of his voice drowned the noise it made.

ten.

"No, not to-night," he said, briskly, so that the sound of his voice penetrated into the hall beyond. "I mustn't stop any longer, I'm keeping you up. It has been very pleasant to have heard all that news from home. It was such a chance, my seeing you before I sailed. Goodnight." He paused and pretended to lis"No, Allen, I don't think it's a servant," he said. 'It's some of my friends looking for me. This is my last night on shore, you see." He threw open the door and confronted Meakim and Carroll as they stood in some confusion in the dark hall. Yes, it is some of my friends," Holcombe continued. "I'll be with you in a minute," he said to them. Then he turned, and crossing the room in their sight, shook Allen by the hand, and bade him good-night and good-by.

The embezzler's revulsion of feeling was so keen, and the relief so great, that he was able to smile as Holcombe turned and left him. "I wish you a pleasant voyage," he said, faintly.

Then Holcombe shut the door on him, closing him out from their sight.

He

Miss Terrill said nothing. She was leaning over the side trailing her hand in the water, and watching it run between her slim pink fingers. She raised her eyes to find Holcombe looking at her in

Holcombe shook his hand free, laughing. "Well," he answered, "I persuaded him to make restitution."

"You persuaded him!" exclaimed Carroll, impatiently. "How?"

Holcombe's eyes avoided those of the two inquisitors. He drew a long breath and then burst into a loud fit of hysterical laughter. The two men surveyed him grimly. "I argued with him, of course,' said Holcombe, gayly. "That is my business, man; you forget that I am a District Attorney-"

We didn't forget it," said Carroll, fiercely. "Did you? What did you do?" Holcombe backed away up the stairs, shaking his head and laughing. "I shall never tell you," he said. He pointed with his hand down the second flight of stairs. "Meet me in the smoking-room," he continued. "I will be there in a minute, and we will have a banquet. Ask the others to come. I have something to do first." The two men turned reluctantly away, and continued on down the stairs without speaking and with their faces filled with doubt. Holcombe ran first to Reese's room and replaced the pistol in its holder. He was trembling as he threw the thing from him, and had barely reached his own room and closed the door when a sudden faintness overcame him. The weight he had laid on his nerves was gone, and the laughter had departed from his face. He stood looking back at what he had escaped as a man reprieved at the steps of the gallows turns his head to glance at the rope he has cheated. Holcombe tossed the bundle of notes upon the table and took an unsteady step across the room. Then he turned suddenly and threw himself upon his knees and buried his face in the pillow.

The sun rose the next morning on a cool beautiful day, and the consul's boat, with the American flag trailing from the stern, rose and fell on the bluest of blue waters as it carried Holcombe and his friends to the steamer's side.

"We are going to miss you very much," Mrs. Carroll said. "I hope you won't forget to send us word of yourself."

fulness and pity, at which she smiled brightly back at him, and began to plan vivaciously with Captain Reese for a ride. that same afternoon.

They separated over the steamer's deck, and Meakim, for the hundredth time, and in the lack of conversation which comes at such moments, offered Holcombe a fresh cigar.

"But I have got eight of yours now," said Holcombe.

"That's all right; put it in your pocket," said the Tammany chieftain, and smoke it after dinner. You'll need 'em. They're better than those you'll get on the steamer, and they never went through a custom-house."

Holcombe cleared his throat in some slight embarrassment. "Is there anything I can do for you in New York, Meakim?" he asked. Anybody I can see, or to whom I can deliver a message?"

66

"No," said Meakim. "I write pretty often. Don't you worry about me," he added, gratefully. "I'll be back there some day myself, when the law of limitation lets me."

Holcombe laughed. "Well," he said, "I'd like to do something for you if you'd let me know what you'd like."

Meakim put his hands behind his back and puffed meditatively on his cigar, rolling it between his lips with his tongue. Then he turned it between his fingers and tossed the ashes over the side of the boat. He gave a little sigh, and then frowned at having done so. "I tell you what you can do for me, Holcombe," he said, smiling. "Some night I wish you would go down to Fourteenth Street, some night this spring, when the boys are sitting out on the steps in front of the Hall, and just take a drink for me at Ed Lally's; just for luck. Will you? That's what I'd like to do. I don't know nothing better than Fourteenth Street of a summer evening, with all the people crowding into Pastor's on one side of the Hall, and the Third Avenue L cars running by on the other. That's a gay sight; ain't it, now? With all the girls coming in and out of Theiss's, and the sidewalks crowded. One of them warm nights when they have to

have the windows open, and you can hear the music in at Pastor's, and the audience clapping their hands. That's great, isn't it? Well," he laughed and shook his head, "I'll be back there some day, won't I," he said, wistfully," and hear it for myself." "Carroll," said Holcombe, drawing the former to one side, "suppose I see this cabman when I reach home, and get him to withdraw the charge, or agree not to turn up when it comes to trial?"

Carroll's face clouded in an instant. "Now, listen to me, Holcombe," he said. "You let my dirty work alone. There's lots of my friends who have nothing better to do than just that. You have something better to do, and you leave me and my rows to others. I like you for what you are, and not for what you can do for me. I don't mean that I don't appreciate your offer, but it shouldn't have come from an Assistant District Attorney to a fugitive criminal."

"What nonsense!" said Holcombe. "Don't say that; don't say that!" ex

claimed Carroll, quickly, as though it hurt him. “You wouldn't have said it a month ago."

Holcombe eyed the other with an alert, confident smile. "No, Carroll," he answered, "I would not.' He put his hand on the other's shoulder with a suggestion in his manner of his former self, and with a touch of patronage. "I have learned a great deal in a month," he said. "Seven battles were won in seven days once. All my life I have been fighting causes, Carroll, and principles. I have been working with laws against law-breakers. I have never yet fought a man. It was not poor old Meakim, the individual, I prosecuted, but the corrupt politician. Now here I have been thrown with men and women on as equal terms as a crew of sailors cast away upon a desert island. We were each a law unto himself. And I have been brought face to face, and for the first time in my life, not with principles of conduct, not with causes, and not with laws, but with my fellow-men.”

HE inhabitants of the Old World are sharply divided into two classes-the poor and the rich. Those are multitudinous; these strikingly few. In the New World, likewise, are the poor and the rich, but with many gradations of each rank, the poor not always being miserable, the rich seldom being contented. The lot of the poor is not fixed, is not unalterable, here, as it generally is in foreign lands. Our poor often become rich, as our rich often become poor. And then we have a large middle class, financially, who are far better satisfied than their superiors in fortune. Most members of this class are pecuniarily independent; they who have grown so by their unaided exertions have procured one of the most substantial rewards of life.

Only in this country is it comparatively easy for a man to acquire such independence; and, because of its ease, he rarely acquires it, considering his ample opportunities. Abroad, the very poor may save something by stern self-denial, which will keep them from hunger and cold in the day of stress; and they do it more frequently, perhaps, than they do it here, where work is plentier and wages

VOL. LXXXVIII.-No. 528.-87

higher. But neither there nor here is an independence attainable by the manual laborer. For that, a man must steadily earn an excess of what will provide for his daily wants; he must employ his mind, be commonly educated, capable of some self-discipline. He must be, in short, what the mass of representative Americans are in intelligence and enterprise, and what they are not in thrift and monetary appreciation. He should begin his undertaking early, at the outset of his commercial or professional career, and pursue it zealously and unflaggingly. He should not wait till he is a husband and a father, for then it may be too late. such, he cannot readily regulate his expenses; and lack of power to regulate them may defer his independence indefinitely, if not prevent it altogether.

As

The mischief, with most of us, is that we are not apt to think of getting any surplus until we need more money than we can command. As bachelors little may suffice us. As husbands we cannot tell what we may need, any more than we can tell what will be our degree of content or discontent at any time in the future.

Many a man, having a predisposition to celibacy, decides in his youth that he will never marry, and that he need not therefore be provident. He can, he thinks, afford to spend as he goes, after putting by a small sum to meet contingent demands. But this is incautious, even if his decision be correct. Moreover, nobody can be secure against marriage. It may happen to any one; indeed, it is likely to happen, and often does happen, when one least looks for it. The most confident man is frequently the least prepared against it. Like lightning or a pestilence, it may strike anywhere at any moment. It does not depend on the man so much as on circumstances. He may awake as from a dream, and discover himself married. Fortune, no less than Nature, delights to baffle us, as if to prove our potent fallibility.

Independence, from an entirely American stand-point, is always more or less hard to gain, though not exceeding hard, not almost impossible, as it is across the sea. It requires continuous resolution, unflinching perseverance, steady self-abstinence, clear judgment, with a dash of what is reckoned as luck, especially in youth, when such qualities are least developed. Above all, it requires resolution and perseverance. An earnest attempt at independence can never really be made too late, desirable as it is to make the attempt early. Independence should be aimed at, kept firmly in mind, whether one be twenty-five or sixty, whether one have many responsibilities or none. For it is very rarely reached without ceaseless solicitude and striving, and not, as must be granted, reached generally even with these. After good repute and good health, it is the most valuable of possessions. It is apprehensible salvation. Nevertheless, the first stages are the most arduous, the most discouraging. Beyond them the road is smoother, and success dawns in the distance. Cling to the pros pect while life lasts, though expectation swoon by the way. The recompense is worth the stoutest labor, the severest sacrifice; it richly atones, in the end, for whatever may have been endured for the precious cause.

What constitutes an independence? Does it not vary with the place and the individual? Is not the independence of one man totally inadequate to that of another? Obviously yes. Your idea of an

independence may be so superior to mine as to seem like wealth, which, in any reasonable sense, may not be hoped for, and is not, in truth, by any number of men, though to the manner born. Still sensible, sober opinions on the subject are not so different as may appear at first. Each man should determine for himself, according to his surroundings and relations, what amount he and his, if all sources fail, can live on in a very simple way--in a way bearable and decent, if not quite pleasant or desirable. If he has inhabited a big city, like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, he must be willing, while the strain lasts, to reside in a small town or village, presuming he can do no better, and learn gradually to resign himself to a shrunken income. may be a stern task, but it is by no means impracticable. The most exacting of us yield with a degree of grace to the unavoidable. We can get accustomed, we Americans particularly, to anything, for better or for worse. We are capable, at shortest summons, of stoic strength, of enormous grit.

It

Who has not seen old New-Yorkers, wonted to luxury, accept poignant reverses without a murmur? Who has not known them to vegetate on the frontier, or in a decaying foreign town, silent about the past, outwardly serene as to the future? Poverty, real or comparative, teaches us how many dainties are superfluous. And to be relieved of uncertainty and anxiety in a fine establishment by settling down on an unmistakable independence, limited as it may be, is a sovereign solace.

If a

It seems to be generally agreed that in New York a native citizen, a man of small family-a wife and two children, for example-cannot get on respectably with less than about $5000 a year. bachelor, $1200 to $1500 will answer. In other cities $3000 to $4000 may sustain him domestically; in a village or the country, materially less. If he must descend to marked plainness, rigid economy, prosaic facts, he can find places where, without other income, $2000 to $2500 will keep him and his household together, not without material comfort. That amount, therefore, may be taken as an approximation to an independence, as enough certainly to keep the wolf and the creditor from the door. Confession may be frankly made, how

ever, that no such sum is regarded by city folk as sufficient for the purpose. They might put it at fully $10,000, and speak of minor figures as penury, or prolonged starvation. Strict independence may, notwithstanding, be computed in general at $2000 to $2500; and he who has secured it indubitably has no cause to fear compassion, or to seek for sympathy. He may esteem it a genuine misfortune to be so reduced, especially after having had five or ten times as much. Still, it is independence-not handsome, welcome, or in any manner satisfactory; and it is within reach of nearly any one who diligently and earnestly works for it. Not a few can get an independence of from $15,000 to $30,000 a year; but they are capable of acquiring wealth if they care to, and should not in consequence be held as representative. Nor should ordinary independence be disfavored by such citation. Place it so low that it may appear not only possible but probable of attainment, and many will struggle for it. No one need to pause at $2500, if he can honestly and conscientiously, without undue appreciation of or struggle for money, increase the sum. What begins with laudable desire for a modest competence may, and often does, result in a wild, utterly reckless, scramble for wealth.

This is a manifest danger, though nothing like so common as believed and published. He who sets out in hope of mere independence is apt to rest content with it, having gained it without longing for riches. One reason is that it is slow of accumulation; that he gets familiar with its gradual advance; that his mind is kept healthful by its reasonable, well-merited growth. Riches, on the other hand, are likely to come fast, often suddenly; to turn business into passion, and passion finally into financial monomania.

Thousands of Americans, at every commercial centre of the republic, eager for and bent on independence, are indifferent to wealth, do not in the least concern themselves about it. The two acquisitions, much and constantly as they are mistaken one for the other, are as dissimilar as liberty and license. One seeks for emancipation, individual recognition, mental salubrity, the right to one's self; the other often seeks for gratification of selfishness, vulgar importance, sordid vanity, greed of mean power.

Not all, not a great many, perhaps, gain an independence; but is it not more from want of heed, will, effort, self-denial, than from want of opportunity? It behooves every one of us to contend for it long and patiently, energetically, and ardently. If we fall short of it, it may be a consolation to remember our faithful endeavor therefor, our incessant quest, yet a quest pursued with moderation and temperance. Its advantages are manifold and inestimable; they can hardly be overrated.

Independence provides a basis for the most wholesome, helpful life, and nothing else can take its place. It is not to be supposed that the acquirer of an independence, limited or liberal, must always rely on it necessarily, or rely on it at all. It is merely a sheet-anchor, to be cast in stress of weather in order to prevent the ship from going ashore. Every vessel carries one; there would not and could not be any safety without it; nor, what is more, any feeling of safety. An independence affects one's feeling rather than establishes a fact; and feeling generally outweighs fact tenfold.

Or

A manly man fears not poverty, disaster, or death as they will act on him, to any such extent as he fears them for the result they will have on his wife and children. His independence will benefit them if he be disabled or blotted out. This is what makes it so invaluable. if from any cause he can earn no more money for a short or a long time, he can have recourse to the revenue from his investments, which should be selected, of course, more with an eye to soundness than to profit. He may never suffer any serious reverses; his affairs may continue to prosper. But will that render his income, secured years before, and guarded as a sacred fund, less precious in his eyes? On the contrary, the longer he has it, the more he will cherish it, the greater satisfaction he will derive from it. It is that which has nerved him to the struggle, and aided him to conduct it to a fruitful issue.

How any business or undertaking may terminate is beyond conjecture, or what the coming year may hold in store. But a proper independence-another name for a series of cautious, conservative investments-is, or should be, as safe as human judgment can make it. A man may be obliged to change his place of residence.