will furnish. How you find them rated and classified--what odd notes you
make to them in the margin; and after the trenchant and rapid
vivisection, what sinister scars and seams remain, and how gaunt and
repulsive old acquaintances stand up from it.

The Town Clerk knew the constituency of Dollington at his fingers' ends;
and Stanley Lake quietly enjoyed, as certain minds will, the nefarious
and shabby metamorphosis which every now and then some familiar and
respectable burgess underwent, in the spell of half-a-dozen dry sentences
whispered in his ear; and all this minute information is trustworthy and
quite without malice.

I went to my bed-room, and secured the door, lest Uncle Lorne, or Julius,
should make me another midnight visit. So that mystery was cleared up.
Neither ghost nor spectral illusion, but flesh and blood--though in my
mind there has always been a horror of a madman akin to the ghostly or
demoniac.

I do not know how late Tom Wealdon and Stanley Lake sat up over their
lists; but I dare say they were in no hurry to leave them, for a
dissolution was just then expected, and no time was to be lost.

When I saw Tom Wealdon alone next day in the street of Gylingden, he
walked a little way with me, and, said Tom, with a grave wink--

'Don't let the captain up there be hard on the poor old gentleman. He's
quite harmless--he would not hurt a fly. I know all about him; for Jack
Ford and I spent five weeks in the Hall, about twelve years ago, when the
family were away and thought the keeper was not kind to him. He's quite
gentle, and sometimes he'd make you die o' laughing. He fancies, you