'Catch me--I want to travel in a van,' replied the youth.

And so the door of communication was closed; and for the rest of the run

Mr Wickham was left alone over his diversions on the one side, and on

the other Michael and the guard were closeted together in familiar talk.

'I can get you a compartment here, sir,' observed the official, as the

train began to slacken speed before Bishopstoke station. 'You had best

get out at my door, and I can bring your friend.'

Mr Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly suspected)

beginning to 'play billy' with the labels in the van, was a young

gentleman of much wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a highly

vacant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived to get himself

blackmailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar, resident for

political reasons in the gay city of Paris. A common friend (to whom he

had confided his distress) recommended him to Michael; and the lawyer

was no sooner in possession of the facts than he instantly assumed

the offensive, fell on the flank of the Wallachian forces, and, in the

inside of three days, had the satisfaction to behold them routed and

fleeing for the Danube. It is no business of ours to follow them on

this retreat, over which the police were so obliging as to preside

paternally. Thus relieved from what he loved to refer to as the

Bulgarian Atrocity, Mr Wickham returned to London with the most

unbounded and embarrassing gratitude and admiration for his saviour.

The Wrong Box