The attorney quietly bolted his study door, and stood erect, with his
hands in his pockets, looking sternly down on the letters. Then he took a
little gazetteer off a tiny shelf near the bell-rope, where was a railway
guide, an English dictionary, a French ditto, and a Bible, and with his
sharp penknife he deftly sliced from its place in the work of reference
the folded map of Europe.

It was destined to illustrate the correspondence, and Larkin sat down
before it and surveyed, with a solemn stare, the wide scene of Mark
Wylder's operations, as a general would the theatre of his rival's
strategy.

Referring to the letters as he proceeded, with a sharp pen in red ink, he
made his natty little note upon each town or capital in succession, from
which Wylder had dated a despatch. Boulogne, for instance, a neat little
red cross over the town, and beneath, '12th October, 1854;' Brighton,
ditto, '20th October, 1854;' Paris, ditto, '17th November, 1854;'
Marseilles, ditto, '26th November, 1854;' Frankfurt, ditto, '22nd
February, 1855;' Geneva, ditto, '10th March, 1855;' Genoa, ditto, '20th
March, 1855;' Venice, ditto, '28th March, 1855.'

I may here mention that in the preceding notation I have marked the days
and months exactly, but the years fancifully.

I don't think that Mr. Larkin had read the 'Wandering Jew.' He had no
great taste for works of fancy. If he had he might have been reminded, as
he looked down upon the wild field of tactics just noted by his pen, of
that globe similarly starred all over with little red crosses, which M.
Rodin was wont to consult.