Aladdin of London, or The Lodestar

Alban had been five weeks at Hampstead when he met Willy Forrest for the first time, and was able to gratify his curiosity concerning one whom he believed to be Anna's lover.

The occasion was Richard Gessner's absence in Paris upon a business of great urgency and the immediate appearance of the dashing captain at "Five Gables." True, Anna behaved with great discretion, but, none the less, Alban understood that this man was more to her than others, and he did not fail to judge him with that shrewd scrutiny even youth may command.

Willy Forrest, to give him his due, took an instinctive liking to the new intruder and was not to be put off, however much his attentions were displeasing to Anna. A cunning foresight, added to a fecund imagination and a fine taste for all chroniques scandaleuses, led him to determine that Alban Kennedy might yet inherit the bulk of Gessner's fortune and become the plumpest of all possible pigeons. Should this be the case, those who had been the young man's friends in the beginning might well remain so to the end. He resolved instantly to cultivate an acquaintance so desirable, and lost not a moment in the pursuit of his aims.

"My dear chap," he said on the third day of their association, "you are positively growing grass in this place. Do you never go anywhere? Has no one taught you how to amuse yourself?"

Alban replied that everything was so new to him that he desired no other amusement than its enjoyment.

"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said; "the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr. Gessner says I am to stop with them always--but he might change his mind and then it would be Commercial Road again--if I had the courage to go back there."

Forrest had known evil times himself, and he could honestly appreciate the possibility.

"Stick by the old horse while he sticks by you," was his candid advice. "I expect he's under a pretty stiff obligation to some of your people who are gone, and this is how he's paying it. You take all the corn you can get and put it in your nose-bag. Anna herself tells me that the old man is only happy while you are in the house. Play up to it, old chap, and grease your wheels while the can's going round."