Captain Clavering and Captain Boodle had, as may be imagined, discussed at great length and with much frequency the results of the former captain's negotiations¹ with the Russian spy, and it had been declared strongly by the latter captain, and ultimately admitted by the former, that those results were not satisfactory. Seventy pounds had been expended², and, so to say, nothing had been accomplished³. It was in vain that Archie, unwilling⁴ to have it thought that he had been worsted in diplomacy⁵, argued that with these political personages, and especially with Russian political personages, the ambages were everything,—that the preliminaries were in fact the whole, and that when they were arranged, the thing was done. Doodles proved to demonstration⁶ that the thing was not done, and that seventy pounds was too much for mere⁷ preliminaries. "My dear fellow," he said, speaking I fear with some scorn in his voice, "where are you? That's what I want to know. Where are you? Just nowhere." This was true. All that Archie had received from Madame Gordeloup in return for his last payment, was an intimation that no immediate⁸ day could be at present named for a renewal⁹ of his personal attack upon the countess; but that a day might be named when he should next come to Mount Street,—provision, of course, being made that he should come with a due qualification under his glove. Now the original basis on which Archie was to carry on his suit had been arranged to be this,—that Lady Ongar should be made to know that he was there; and the way in which Doodles had illustrated

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