IN WARSAW 161

who have to pay a ruinous ransom in case of their city
being captured by the enemy. ‘The traders of Warsaw will
need no reminder of such well-known facts, and will be
only too glad to be assured that, unless as a last resource,
our king has no intention of making war upon Poland,
and they will certainly be inclined to bestir themselves to
avert such a possibility. You have, I suppose, a list of
names of the people with whom you had best put yourself
into communication?”

“Ves, sir; here is alist. here are, I see, ten Scotch-
men, fifteen Frenchmen, and about as many Jews.”

“T know nothing of the Frenchmen, and less of the
Jews,” the colonel said, taking the list; “but I ought to
know some of the Scotchmen. ‘They will hail from Dun-
dee and Glasgow, and it may be Dumfries.” He ran his
eye down the list. ‘‘Aha! here is one, and we need go
no further. Allan Ramsay; we were lads together at the
High School of Glasgow, and were class-mates at the
College. His father was a member of the city council, and
was one of the leading traders in the city. Allan was a
wild lad, as I was myself, and many a scrape did we get
into together, and had many a skirmish with the watch.
Allan had two or three half-brothers, men from ten to
twenty years older than himself, and a year or two after I
came out to Sweden and entered the army as an ensign,
who should I meet in the streets of Gottenburg but Allan
Ramsay.

“We were delighted to see each other, and he stopped
with me nearly aweek. He had, after leaving the College,
gone into his father’s business, but when the old man died
he could not get on with his half-brothers, who were dour
men, and had little patience with Allan’s restlessness and
love of pleasure. So, after a final quarrel, they had given
him so much money for his share of the business and a
letter of introduction to a trader in Poland, who had writ-