Blessed age of progress! Age of steady advancement when the apple of vice is so cunningly disguised and so prettily painted that we can actually set it on a porcelain dish and hand it about among our friends as a valuable and choice fruit of virtue--and no one finds out the fraud we are practicing, nay, we scarcely perceive it ourselves, it is such an excellent counterfeit! As I walked to and fro, I found myself continually passing the head office of the Carabinieri, and, acting on a sudden impulse of curiosity, I at last entered the building, determined to ask for a few particulars concerning the brigand's capture.

I was received by a handsome and intelligent-looking man, who glanced at the card with which I presented myself, and saluted me with courteous affability.
"Oh, yes!" he said, in answer to my inquiries, "Neri has given us a great deal of trouble.

But we had our suspicions that he had left Gaeta, where he was for a time in hiding.

A few stray bits of information gleaned here and there put us on the right track." "Was he caught easily, or did he show fight ?" "He gave himself up like a lamb, signor! It happened in this way.

One of our men followed the woman who lived with Neri, one Teresa, and traced her up to a certain point, the corner of a narrow mountain pass--where she disappeared.