chair from which he fell, he had ultimately, and with the umbrella still under his arm raised the dishevelled nephew head-downward in his arms, and impatiently conveyed him from the heated room and house to the coolest retreat he could think of.  There depositing him, and, in his hurry, the umbrella also, to sleep off, under reviving atmospheric influences, the unseemly effect of the evening’s banquet, he had gone back on both sides of the road to his boarding-house, and, with his boots upon the pillow, sunk into an instantaneous sleep of unfathomable depth.  Dreaming, towards morning, that he was engaging a large boa-constrictor in single combat, and struggling energetically to restrain the ferocious reptile from getting into his boots, he had suddenly awakened, with a crash, upon the floor—­to miss his umbrella and nephew, to forget where he had put them, and to fly to Gospeler’s Gulch with incoherent charges of larceny and manslaughter.  All this he could now vaguely recall, his present psychological condition, or trance-state, being the same as then; and was going entrancedly back to the hiding-place where, with the best of motives, he had forgetfully left the two objects dearest to him in life.

On, then, proceeded the Ritualistic organist in the tawny light of the black leopard’s eye:  his stealthy follower trailing closely after in the shade of the roadside trees where the star-spotted leopard’s black paws were plunged deepest.  On he went, in zig-zag profusion of steps and occasional high skips over incidental shadows of branches which he for snakes, until the Pauper Burial Ground was reached, and MCLAUGHLIN’S hidden subterranean retreat therein attained.  It was the same weird spot to which he had been brought by Old MORTARITY on the wintry night of their unholy exploring party; and, without appearing to be surprised that the entrance to the excavation was open, he eagerly descended by the rickety step-ladder, and held himself steady by the latter while throwing the light of his lantern around the mouldy walls.

His immediate hiccup, provoked by the dampness of the situation, was answered by a groan, which, instead of being solid, was very hollow; and, as he peered vivaciously forward behind his extended lantern, there advanced from a far corner—­O, woeful man!  O, thrice unhappy uncle!—­the spectral figure of the missing Edwin Drood!

After a moment’s inspection of the apparition, which paused terribly before him with hand hidden in breast, Mr. Bumstead placed his lantern upon a step of the ladder, drew and profoundly labiated his antique black bottle, thoughtfully crunched a couple of cloves from another pocket—­staring stonily all the while—­and then addressed the youthful shade:—­

“Where’s th’ umbrella?”

“Monster of forgetfulness! murderer of memory!” spoke the spirit, sternly.  “In this, the last rough resting place of the impecunious dead, do you dare to discuss commonplace topics with one of the departed?  Look at me, uncle, clove-befogged, and shrink appalled from the dread sight, and pray for mercy.”