These indignant words brought Mr. O’Brallaghan to the door, whereupon Mr. Jinks repeated his former observation, and declared that it was an outrage upon his dignity and his rights.

O’Brallaghan displayed some choler at the tone which Mr. Jinks used, and his Irish blood began to rise.  He stated that Mr. Verty had come for his clothes, and should have them.  Mr. Jinks replied, that he had’nt said anything about Mr. Verty; but was contending for a principle.  Mr. O’Brallaghan replied to this with an observation which was lost in his neck-handkerchief, but judging from as much as was audible, in defiance and contempt of Jinks.  Jinks observed, with dignity and severity, that there were customers in the store, who were gazing at Mr. Verty, just as he was about to disrobe.  O’Brallaghan muttered thereupon to himself some hostile epithets, and hastily returned to wait upon the customers, leaving Mr. Jinks dodging to avoid the eyes of the new-comers, but still preserving an expression of haughty scorn.

Meanwhile Verty had descried his old forest suit lying upon a shelf, and, laying down his rifle, had nearly indued his limbs therewith.  In fifteen minutes he had completed the change in his costume, and stood before Mr. Jinks the same forest-hunter which he had been, before the purchase of the elegant clothes he had just taken off.  Instead of rosetted shoes, moccasins; instead of silk and velvet, leather and fur.  On his head, his old white hat had taken the place of the fashionable chapeau.  Verty finished, by taking off the bow of ribbon which secured his hair behind, and scattering the profuse curls over his shoulders.

“Now,” he sighed, looking in a mirror which hung upon the wall, “I feel more like myself.”

Jinks gazed at him with dignified emotion.

“You return to the woods, sir,” he said; “would that I could make up my mind to follow your example.  This man, O’Brallaghan, however—­”

And Mr. Jinks completed his sentence by savagely clipping a piece of cloth with the huge shears he held, as though the enemy’s neck were between them.

Verty scarcely observed this irate movement.

“I’ll leave the clothes here,” he said; “I’m going now—­good-bye.”

And taking up his rifle, the young man went out, followed by Longears, who, to the last, bent his head over his shoulder, and gazed upon Mr. Jinks with curiosity and interest.

Jinks, with a savage look at O’Brallaghan, was about to return to his work, when a letter, protruding from the pocket of the coat which Verty had just taken off, attracted his attention, and he pounced upon it without hesitation.

Jinks had recognized the handwriting of Miss Sallianna in the address, and in an instant determined to use no ceremony.

He tore it open, and read, with savage scowls and horrible contortions of the visage, that which follows.  Unfortunate Jinks—­reading private letters is a hazardous proceeding:  and this was what the hero read: