The lawyer asked the landlord if he would spare him the newspaper for an hour and supply him with pen and ink and a few sheets of paper.  Then he took his lamp and retired to his room.  “Poor old Farquhar,” he soliloquized, as he arranged his writing materials; “he’ll feel mighty bad at being left all alone, but it’s good for his health, and business is business.  Let me see, now.  Barrie was never a military station, besides the letter had Barrief on it, a name that doesn’t exist.  But the letter was torn there, or the corner worn away in a man’s pocket.  By the powers, it’s Barriefield at Kingston, and there’s the military station for you.  I’ll write our correspondent there, and I’ll set one of the juniors to work up Dr. Carmichael’s record in Vaughan County, and I’ll notify MacSmaill, W.S., that I am on the track, and—­shall I write the girl, there’s the rub?” The three letters were written with great care and circumspection, but not the fourth.  When carefully sealed, directed and stamped, he carried them to the post-office and personally deposited them in the slit for drop-letters.  Returning to the hotel, he restored the newspaper to the table of the reading-room, minus the clipped advertisement to the next of kin, which he stowed away in his pocketbook.  This late work filled the lawyer with a satisfaction that crowned the pleasures of the day, and he longed to communicate some of it to his friend, but that gentleman, the landlord said, had retired for the night, looking a bit put out—­he hoped supper had been to his liking.  Coristine said the supper was good.  “What was the number of Mr. Wilkinson’s room?”

Mine host replied that it was No. 32, the next to his own.  Before retiring, Coristine looked at the fanlight over the door of No. 32; it was dark.  Nevertheless he knocked, but failed to evoke a response.  “Farquhar, my dear,” he whispered in an audible tone, but still there was no answer.  So he heaved a sigh, and, returning to his apartment, read a few words out of his pocket prayer-book, and went to bed.  There he had an awful dream, of the old captain leading Wilkinson by the collar and tail of his coat up to the altar, where Miss Carmichael stood, resplendent in pearls and diamonds, betokening untold wealth; of an attempt at rescue by himself and The Crew, which was nipped in the bud by the advent of the veteran, his daughter and Miss Jewplesshy.  The daughter laid violent hands upon The Crew and waltzed him out of the church door, while the veteran took Coristine’s palsied arm and placed that of his young mistress upon it, ordering them, with military words of command, to accompany the victims, as bridesmaid and groomsman.  When the dreamer recovered sufficiently to look the officiating clergyman full in the face, he saw that this personage was no other than Frank, the news-agent, whereupon he laughed immediately and awoke.

“Corry, Corry, my dear fellow, are you able to get up, or shall I break the door in?” were the words that greeted his ear on awaking.