ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes.  It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count’s table before I knew of his diabolical plans.  Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision.  He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out.  To use an Americanism, he had ’taken no chances’, and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled was simply the logical result of his care.  I saw the invoice, and took note of it.  ’Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes’.  Also the copy of the letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply.  Of both these I got copies.  This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs Officers and the harbour master, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes.  Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add to the simple description ’fifty cases of common earth’, except that the boxes were ‘main and mortal heavy’, and that shifting them was dry work.  One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn’t any gentleman ’such like as like yourself, squire’, to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form.  Another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it.  Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, forever and adequately, this source of reproach.

30 September.—­The station master was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the station master at King’s Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes.  He, too put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice.  The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited.  A noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in ex post facto manner.

From thence I went to Carter Paterson’s central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy.  They looked up the transaction in their day book and letter book, and at once telephoned to their King’s Cross office for more details.  By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax.  Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly.  The carriers’ men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few more details.  These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and the consequent thirst engendered in the operators.  On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked,