Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances incalculable as the descent of thistledown.—George Eliot's Romola.

During Jack's visit to her father's office, Nina passed the time in desultory shopping until she met him on King Street.

"I need not ask what your success was," said she, smiling, as she joined him. "Your face shows that clearly enough."

"Nothing less than a dook," groaned Jack, good-humoredly. "He seems to think they can be had at auction sales in England."

"I am glad he refused," said Nina, "because his consent would delay my whims. We have done our duty in asking him, and now I am going to marry you to-morrow, Jack."'

"To-morrow?"

"Yes, I am afraid, dear Jack, that if I allowed the marriage to be put off till next week or longer you might change your mind." She gave Jack a look that disturbed thought. Affection toward him on her part was something so new that this, together with her startling announcement, made it difficult for him accurately to distinguish his head from his heels.

"But I can not leave the bank at a moment's notice."

"No; but you can get your holidays a week sooner. You were going to take them in a week."

"Had we not better wait, then, for the week to expire?"

"Fiddlesticks! Don't you see that I want to give you a chance? What I am really afraid of is that I shall change my own mind. Father said only yesterday he was thinking of taking me to England at once. If you don't want to take your chances you can take your consequences instead."

It did not seem anything new or strange to Jack that she should give a little stamp of her foot imperiously, and in all the willfulness of a spoiled child determine suddenly upon carrying out a whim in spite of any objections. And Jack needed no great force of argument to push him on in this matter. His head was throbbing with excitement. To think of the bank was habitual to him; but the wildness of the new move commended itself to his young blood. The holidays were a mere matter of arrangement, for the most part, between the clerks, and he thought he saw his way to arranging for a fortnight's absence. "I'll make it all right," he said, thinking aloud. "I will arrange it with Sappy."

Whether "Sappy" was the bank manager or a fellow-clerk did not at the moment interest Nina.

"Why, Nina, I didn't know you were a person to go in for anything half so wild. It suits me. It will be the spree of my life! But how have you arranged everything? or have you arranged anything?"

"Oh, there is nothing very much to arrange. I know you can not leave the bank finally without giving due notice. So we will just go off now and get married, and when you come back, after a week or so, you can give the usual notice and then we will go to California. If your brother there wants you to go into the grape-farming he must know well enough that you have better chances there than here in the bank, and if, after all, the business there did not get on well, I dare say father will have changed his mind by that time."

"And how will you account for your absence from home?"

"Nothing simpler," said she, with a sagacious toss of her head. "I am just telegraphing to Sophronia B. Hopkins at Lockport, New York. You remember Sophronia B., when she was with us? I have telegraphed that I am coming to see her. She will answer to say 'Come along'; and then I will put her off for a couple of weeks and tell her to keep any letters forwarded for me from here until I come."

Jack was astonished. "I thought your head was only valuable as an ornament," said he, with affectionate rudeness.

"I have never, with you, had occasion to use it before. To-morrow, at half-past seven in the morning, you will take the train for Hamilton. I will take the 9.30 and we will go through to Buffalo together, where we will arrive about two o'clock, and then we can be married there and go West. But we need not arrange anything more now. You will be at the Campbells' to-night, and anything further can be spoken about there. Go off now to the bank and get everything ready. And, by the way, Jack"—here she held out her hand as if for good-by—while she asked, with what seemed to Jack an almost unimaginable coquetry and beauty, "you won't change your mind, dear Jack?" She gave him one glance from under her sweeping eyelashes, and then she left him to grope his way to the bank.

She thought, as she walked along, "I think I have read somewhere that 'whom the gods wish to take they first drive mad,' or something like that. It is just as well, as Geoffrey suggested, to keep Jack slightly insane to-day. It will prevent him from thinking my proposal strange. Poor Jack! To-day he would give me his right arm as a present. How shabbily I have treated him, and how well he has always behaved!"

About eleven on the following forenoon, Jack was waiting in the dining-room of the Hamilton railway station, looking out through the window to see Nina's train come in. He thought it better to escape observation in this way. Nor did Nina indulge in looking out the window of the Pullman. Everything had been fully arranged, and as the bridge train moved out of the station, Jack left his obscure post of observation and hastily passed through the crowd on the station and got on board the "smoker" in front. When clear of Hamilton he made his way back through the cars to the drawing-room car, where he found Nina, who was beginning to look a little anxious for his arrival.

The train took nearly two hours to trundle along to the bridge. For a time they talked together, but Nina was feeling the reaction of the excitement of getting away. She had had a good deal to do, and she did not feel that going away with Jack would prevent her from enjoying a fairly comfortable nap in the large swinging arm-chairs. She soon dozed off, and Jack, who was pleased to see her rest, walked to the end of the car and back again to calm his nerves. This sort of thing was new to him. He had a novel with him, but he could not read it. His "only books were woman's looks" to-day. Other people's adventures seemed poor to him just now, in comparison with his own.

While thus moving about restlessly he became a little interested in an elderly gentleman, evidently a clergyman, who was sitting unobtrusively behind a copy of the Detroit Church Herald. He passed this retiring person several times, in loitering about, and then, seeing him with his paper laid down beside him, stopped and said cheerfully:

"Got the car all to ourselves to-day."

"Yes," said the grave-looking person, with an American accent. "And pleasant, too, on a warm day like this. It's worth the extra quarter to get out from among the crying babies and orange-peel and come in here and travel comfortably. Going far?"

"Only as far as Buffalo," said Jack, taking a seat beside him, for want of anything better to do.

"That is where I reside."

"Ah, indeed!" said Jack. "You make Buffalo the scene of your official duties?"

The other nodded. "I have been for a visit to Detroit, and now I am going back to relieve my superior in the church, so that he may take a holiday also. I think we clergy need a holiday as much as any other people I ever saw. Do you know Buffalo at all?"

"Never was there in my life," said Jack.

"Humph! Well, it ain't a bad place, Buffalo, when you know the people well. I have only been there five years, but I have found in our congregation some real nice folks. Of course, mine is the Episcopal Church, and I have generally found the Episcopalians, in my sojournings in different places, to be the superior people of the locality."

From the compliment to the Episcopalians it was evident that the clergyman had no doubt Jack belonged to that aristocratically inclined sect, and Jack smiled at his friend's shrewdness, forgetting the fact that "Church of England—mild, acquiescent, and gentlemanly"—was written all over him, and that the cut of his clothes, the shape of his whisker, the turn of his head when listening, and even the solidity of his utility-first boots made it almost impossible for any person to suppose he belonged to any other denomination.

"I have heard," Jack said, "that the Buffalo people, many of them, have lots of money, and that they give freely to the churches. I suppose money is an element in a congregation which gentlemen of your calling do not object to?"

It seemed to Jack that the long gray eyes of the minister smiled at this point more because he thought he was expected to smile than from any sense of mirth. He was a grave man, who, behind a dignified reserve, seemed capable of taking in a great deal at a glance.

"No one can deny the power of money," he said. "But, though there is a good deal of it in St. James's Church, what with a paid choir, and the church debt, and repairs, and the new organ, and the paying of my superior in office, I can tell you there is not very much left for the person who plays second fiddle, as one may say."

"Ah!" said Jack sympathetically.

"When a man has a wife and a growing family to support and bring up in a large city, and prices away up, twelve hundred dollars a year don't go a very great ways, young man, and if it were not for our perquisites some of us would find it difficult to make both ends of the string meet around the parcel we have got to carry."

Jack was becoming slightly interested in this man and was wondering what his previous history was. He wondered that his new acquaintance had not made more money than he seemed to possess. There was something behind his grave immobility of countenance that suggested ability of some sort, he did not know what. His slightly varying expressions of countenance did not always seem to appear spontaneously, but to be placed there by a directing intelligence that first considered what expression would be the right one. It seemed like a peculiar mannerism which might in another man be the result of a slightly sluggish brain.

They conversed with each other all the way to the bridge, and although the dignified reserve of the clergyman never quite thawed out, Jack began to rather like him and be interested in his large fund of information about the United States and anecdotes of frontier life in California, where as a youth he had had a varied experience.

Their baggage was examined by the customs officer on the American side of the bridge, and the clergyman noticed a monogram in silver on Nina's shopping-bag, "N. L.," and the initials "J. C." on Jack's valises, and came to the conclusion from Jack's studied attentions to Nina when she awoke that, if the young couple were not married yet, it was quite time they were; and no doubt it entered the clerical mind that there might be a marriage fee for himself to come out of the little acquaintance. In view of this he renewed the conversation himself after the car went on by the New York Central toward Buffalo. Jack introduced the Rev. Matthew Simpson to Nina, and he made the short run to Buffalo still shorter with amusing stories of clerical life, ending up with one about his own marriage, which was not the less interesting on account of its being a runaway match and the fact that he had never regretted it. Jack felt that behind this elderly man's dignity there was a heart that understood the world and knew what young people were. So he told a short story on his account, which did not seem to surprise the reverend gentleman a great deal, and it was arranged that he should perform the ceremony for them at the hotel. On arriving in Buffalo they left their luggage at the station, intending to go on to Cleveland at four o'clock. On the way up Main Street, Mr. Simpson pointed out St. James's Church—a large edifice, partly covered with ivy—and also showed the parsonage where he lived. He urged them to wait and be married in the church, but Nina shunned the publicity of it and pleaded their want of time.

Jack and Nina had some dinner at the Genesee House, while Mr. Simpson got the marriage license ready. As luck would have it, Mr. Simpson himself issued marriage licenses, which, as he explained, also assisted him to eke out his small income; and as soon as they had had a hurried lunch, they all retired to a private parlor and the marriage ceremony was performed very quietly.

Two waiters were called in as witnesses, and it was arranged that on their return to Buffalo in a few days, they could call at the parsonage and then sign the church register, for which there was now no time before the four o'clock train left for Cleveland. The license was produced, filled out, and signed in due form, and on the large red seal were stamped the words, "Matthew Simpson, Issuer of Marriage Licenses." The presence of the stamp showed that he was a duly authorized person, and satisfied Jack that in employing a chance acquaintance he was not making any mistake.

They were glad when the ceremony was finished, and Jack was very pleasant with Mr. Simpson. They all got into the cab again, and rattled off toward the station. As they came near the parsonage of St. James's Church, Mr. Simpson said he thought he would go as far as the suburbs with them in their train to see how some people in the hospital were getting on. He said he would get down, now, at the parsonage, because he wished to take something with him to one of the patients, but that they must not risk losing the train.

"I will take another cab and meet you at the train. It is not a matter of much moment if I fail to catch it; but, Mr. Cresswell, if you get a bottle of wine into the car (perhaps you will have time to get it at the station), I will be pleased to drink Mrs. Cresswell's health."

"That's a capital idea," said Jack with spirit. "The wine will be doubtful, perhaps, but that won't be my fault. And now," he added, as the carriage stopped at the parsonage, "I want to leave with you your fee, Mr. Simpson, and I hope you will not consider that it cancels our indebtedness to you." Jack pulled out a roll of bills.

"Never mind, my dear young man," said Mr. Simpson heartily, "any time will do. I will catch you at the station, and, if I don't, you can leave it with me when you return here to sign the register."

Mr. Simpson got out, and Jack, finding he had only two five dollar bills, the rest being all in fifties, was rather in a dilemma how to pay Mr. Simpson twenty dollars for his fee.

"Here;" he said hurriedly, handing out a fifty, "you get this changed, if you have time, on your way down. You may possibly miss us at the station, and I can not hear of your waiting until we return."

"Very well," said Mr. Simpson, speaking as fast as his tongue would let him, "I will have to take my chance, and, if I can not catch you, just call in for the balance when you return. Don't lose a moment!" With a wave of his hand and a direction to the driver, Mr. Simpson went hurriedly up the parsonage steps, and the cab dashed off toward the Michigan Southern depot.

Jack had time to purchase the wine, which ought to have been good, judging from the price. Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson was too late to join them. The train went off without him, and Jack and Nina drank his jolly good health in half the bottle, and afterward the Pullman conductor struggled successfully with the rest.

Altogether they were in high spirits, Jack especially, and Nina's thankfulness for being safely married to one of the best of men made her very amiable.

Mr. and Mrs. John Cresswell approached Buffalo again, from the West, at the close of Jack's two weeks' holidays. They decided that it would be better for Nina to go straight to Lockport on the train which connected with the one on which they were traveling. There was nothing for Nina to do in Buffalo but sign the register and get her marriage "lines" from Mr. Simpson, and Jack could do this, they thought, without a delay on her part to do so. To arrange about the register she had written her name on a narrow slip of paper which Jack could paste in the book at the parsonage. This they considered would suffice, and Nina went on to pay her intended visit to Sophronia B. Hopkins. The run to Lockport occupied only a short time, and then she went to her friend's house.

In the mean time Jack, who was not like the husband in Punch in that stage of the honeymoon when the presence of a friend "or even an enemy" would be a grateful change of companionship, walked up Main Street smoking a cigar and trying to make the best of his sudden bereavement. He said after the first ten minutes that he was infernally lonely, but still the flavor of the cigar was from fair to middling. And, after all, tobacco and quiet contemplation have a place in life which can not be altogether neglected, and they come in well again after a while, no matter what may have caused their temporary banishment.

He strolled leisurely up to the parsonage and inquired for Mr. Simpson. The maid-servant said he did not live there. Jack thought this was strange.

"I mean the clergyman who has charge of the church alongside."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Toxham lives here. He is inside. Will you walk in?"

Jack was ushered into a clergyman's library, where a thin man with a worn face was sitting. Jack bowed, introduced himself, and said he had come here to see Mr. Matthew Simpson, "one of the associate clergymen in St. James's Church close by."

"I do not think I know anybody by the name of Simpson," said the clergyman. "My name is Toxham. I have no associate clergyman with me in the neighboring church. My church is called St. Luke's, not St. James's. I don't think there is any St. James's Church in Buffalo." Jack grasped the back of the chair and unconsciously sat down to steady himself. A horrible fear overwhelmed him. His face grew ashen in hue, and the clergyman jumped up in a fright, thinking something was going to happen.

"It's all right," said Jack weakly. "Sit down, please. You have given me a shock, and I feel as I never felt before. There, I am better now."

As he wiped away the cold perspiration that had started out in beads on his forehead he related the facts as to his marriage to Mr. Toxham, who was greatly shocked.

An idea occurred to him, and on looking through the city directory, as a sort of last chance, he found the name "Matthew Simpson, issuer of marriage licenses."

Jack started up, filled with wild and sudden hope. He got the address, and dashed from the house before Mr. Toxham could give him a word of advice. Arrived at the office of Matthew Simpson, he walked in and asked for that gentleman.

"I am Matthew Simpson," said the man he spoke to.

Jack looked at him as if he had seven heads, feeling the same trembling in the knees which he had felt when with Mr. Toxham. "Really," he thought, "if this goes on I'll be a driveling idiot by nightfall."

"Did you issue a marriage license on, let me see, two weeks ago to-morrow—on the 23d?"

"More than likely I did. Perhaps a good many on that day. You don't look as if you wanted one yourself. Anything gone wrong? But you can have one if you like. I do the biggest business in Buffalo. I sell more marriage licenses than any two men between here and—"

"Turn up your books," interrupted Jack savagely. He was beginning to wish to kill somebody.

"I always make a charge for a search," said the man cunningly, which was not true.

"Well, damn it, I can pay you. Look lively now, or the police will do it for me in five minutes, and put you where your frauds will be of no use to you."

It was Mr. Simpson's turn to lose color now. He was one of the trustees of a public institution in Buffalo, and people should be careful how they talk too suddenly about police to trustees. The books were produced, and Jack hurriedly looked over the list of the licenses sold on the 23d of the last month, and was surprised to find that one had been sold to himself. His age was entered and sworn to as fifty-five years, and the license was to marry Nina Lindon, spinster, aged twenty years. The addresses given were all Buffalo.

"There has been a great fraud done here," said Jack vehemently.

"All perfectly regular, my dear sir," said Mr. Simpson. "I remember the circumstance well. Old party, called John Cresswell, came in, dressed like a preacher, and wanted a license for himself. 'All right, my old covey,' says I to myself; 'trust an old stager like you to pick up the youngest and best.' So I perdooced the papers, which took about five minutes to fill up. He took the oath, I sealed and stamped the license, like this one here, and as soon as he got it he took out his purse and there was nothing in it. His face fell about a quarter of a yard. 'My goodness,' he says. 'I have come out without any money!' He then laid down the license and rushed to the door, and then turned round and says, quite distressed: 'I'll take a cab,' says he, 'and drive home and get your money. They're all waiting at the church for the marriage to take place, but, of course, you must be paid first.'"

"Well, I hated to see an old gent put about so, and his speaking about 'taking a cab' and coming from 'home' in such a natural, put-about sort of way kinder made me think he was solid, and, like a dum fool, I slings him the license and tells him to call in after the ceremony. He thanked me, with what I should call Christian gratitude in his face. Yes, sir, it was Christian gratitude, there, every time. And—would you believe it?—the old boozer never showed up since!"

"Ha!" said Jack, who only heard the main facts of what Simpson was saying. "Did you never see this old man before?" he added.

"Well, that is a funny thing about it. It seemed to me I knew the face. That was one thing that made me trust him. I could not swear to it, but I have a great mind for faces, and I believe I have, at some time or other, sold the old coon a license before."

Jack thought this would account for the old man, while on the train, giving the name Matthew Simpson, when he had the whole scheme quickly arranged in his head. Still, it might be that he was in fact some profligate, ruined clergyman, who played these confidence games to make a livelihood. The license was issued in his and Nina's names, and, although incorrect on its face and not paid for, might still, he thought, be a legal license for him to claim a bona-fide marriage under. If the license was good enough, the next thing to do was to go to the police office and find out what he could there. "The marriage might be a good one still."

He threw down the price of the license for Mr. Simpson, and asked him to be good enough to keep the papers in his possession carefully, as they might be required afterward. He left Mr. Simpson rather mystified as to the interest he took in the matter, and then, having still two hours before train-time, he repaired to the police headquarters. There he related in effect what had taken place to Superintendent Fox. Two or three quiet-looking men were lounging about, seeming to take but little interest in Jack's story. Detectives are not easily disturbed by that which excites the victim who tells his unfortunate experience. These fellows were smoking cigars, and they occasionally exchanged a low sentence with each other in which Jack thought he heard the word "Faro-Joseph." What that meant he did not know; but he described the gentleman of dignified aspect, whom he had known on the train as Rev. Matthew Simpson, and then he heard one of them mutter "Faro-Joseph" again, while they nodded significantly.

One of the men, who had his boots on a desk in front of him, was consulting his note-book. He then said:

"On the 23d of last month Faro-Joseph got off the train at the Central Depot at two o'clock. On the 26th he left on the Michigan Southern at 10 P. M."

It dawned upon Jack that his clerical friend was called "Faro-Joseph" in police circles.

"Why did you not warn me when you saw me in company with this man. He got off the train with me at the the time you say. Surely I should have had some word from you!"

"Well, gent, I tell you why. I was just about to arrest another man, and in the crowd I did not see that you were with him. Don't remember ever seeing you before. I might pass you twenty times and never know I had seen you. You're not the kind we reaches out for. Now, I dare say, unless a woman is of a fine figure—tall, possibly, or the kind of figure you admire—chances are you don't see her at all. That is, you could not tell afterward whether you had seen her or not. Same thing here. You're not the kind we hunt."

Jack turned to the superintendent and asked him whether this man, Faro-Joseph, was not really at one time a clergyman. The superintendent smiled pityingly.

"Why, he only started the sky-pilot game during the last ten years, and only takes it up occasionally. Though I believe it's his best holt. As a Gospel-sharp he'll beat anybody out of their socks. He's immense on that lay. What I call just perfect. He's all on the confidence ticket now and the pasteboards. Has quite given up the heavy business. Why, sir, you would forgive him most anything if you could see him handle card-board. We pulled him for a 'vag.' one night about four months ago; and, just to find out how he did things, I played a little game with him after we let him go on promise to quit. We put the stakes about as low as they could be put—five-cent ante, and twenty-five cent limit—just for the experiment. Now, sir, you would be surprised. He cheated me from the word 'go,' and I don't know yet how it was done. If he dealt the cards he would get an all-fired hand himself, and if I dealt him nothing he'd bluff me right up the chimney. For poker he has no match, I believe. All I know about that game is that I lost three dollars in thirty minutes."

"Perhaps you have his record written down somewhere?" said Jack, feeling sick at heart, and yet fascinated by the account of Faro-Joseph.

"Perhaps we have," said the superintendent, smiling toward one of the loungers near by. "Just come in this way."

The superintendent opened a large case like a wardrobe, and began flapping back a large number of thin flat wings that all worked on separate hinges. These wings were covered with photographs of criminals—a terrible collection of faces—and from one of them he took a very fair likeness of our clerical friend in another dress. Pasted at the back of the photograph was a folded paper containing a list in fine writing of his known convictions and suspected offenses for a period of over forty years. He had been burglar, counterfeiter, and forger, which the superintendent called the 'heavy business' that he had given up. Since those earlier days he had been train-gambler, confidence-man, and sneak-thief.

There was nothing to be done. Faro-Joseph never had been a clergyman. To put the law in force was out of the question for several reasons. Jack got away to catch his train for Toronto and to think and think what it would be best to do about Nina, and where and how they could get married properly.