"I have heard the latter part of your conversation, and I wish to know why you are so particularly anxious to see the piece of paper that was pinned to the dead man's coat ?" The coolness with which he avowed that he had been listening, and the quietly imperative manner in which he put his concluding question, perplexed and startled me.

I hardly knew at first what tone I ought to take in answering him.

He observed my hesitation, and attributing it to the wrong cause, signed to the old Capuchin to retire.

Humbly stroking his long gray beard, and furtively consoling himself with a private pinch of the "delectable snuff," my venerable friend shuffled out of the room, making a profound obeisance at the door just before he disappeared.
"Now," said the father superior, as coldly as ever, "I am waiting, sir, for your reply." "You shall have it in the fewest possible words," said I, answering him in his own tone.

"I find, to my disgust and horror, that there is an unburied corpse in an outhouse attached to your convent.