horse-races being run in different parts of the United States. The paper
also contained, in connection with this item of news, a photograph which
might, by a stretch of the imagination, have been taken to resemble
Nelson himself.

Mr. Felix, who was a German gentleman of French sympathies, married to
an American lady, had recently returned to America after a ten years'
sojourn in Europe. He had had an extensive commercial career, was
possessed of a considerable fortune, and had at length determined to
settle in New York, where he could invest his money to advantage and at
the same time conduct a conservative and harmonious business in musical
instruments. Like the Teutons of old, dwelling among the forests of the
Elbe, Mr. Felix knew the fascination of games of chance and he had heard
the merry song of the wheel at both Hambourg and Monte Carlo. In Europe
the pleasures of the gaming table had been comparatively inexpensive,
but in New York for some unknown reason the fickle goddess had not
favored him and he had lost upward of $51,000. "Zu viel!" as he himself
expressed it. Being of a philosophic disposition, however, he had
pocketed his losses and contented himself with the consoling thought
that, whereas he might have lost all, he had in fact lost only a part.
It might well have been that had not The Tempter appeared in the person
of his afternoon visitor, he would have remained _in status quo_ for the
rest of his natural life. In the sunny window of his musical store,
surrounded by zitherns, auto-harps, dulcimers, psalteries, sackbuts, and
other instrument's of melody, the advent of Nelson produced the effect
of a sudden and unexpected discord. Felix distrusted him from the very
first.

The "proposition" was simplicity itself. It appeared that Mr. Nelson was
in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had just