ON the evening of Prince Eugen's fateful interview with Mr Sampson Levi, Theodore Racksole was wandering somewhat aimlessly and uneasily about the entrance hail and adjacent corridors of the Grand Babylon.

He had returned from Ostend only a day or two previously, and had endeavoured with all his might to forget the affair which had carried him there--to regard it, in fact, as done with.

But he found himself unable to do so.
In vain he remarked, under his breath, that there were some things which were best left alone: if his experience as a manipulator of markets, a contriver of gigantic schemes in New York, had taught him anything at all, it should surely have taught him that.

Yet he could not feel reconciled to such a position.

The mere presence of the princes in his hotel roused the fighting instincts of this man, who had never in his whole career been beaten.