There was a great laugh from the Board; they couldn’t help it.  “Better meet a bear robbed of her whelps,” said one.

“You’re mistaken as to that,” said the President.  “I did meet him, and stopped him, and found him quite polite.  But I could get no satisfaction from him; the fellow wouldn’t talk in French, and when I spoke in English he hoisted his old shoulders up, and gave the same answer to every thing I said.”

“And that was—?” asked one or two, impatient of the pause.

“That it ‘don’t worse w’ile?’”

One of the Board said:  “Mr. President, this market-house project, as I take it, is not altogether a selfish one; the community is to be benefited by it.  We may feel that we are working in the public interest [the Board smiled knowingly], if we employ all possible means to oust this old nuisance from among us.  You may know that at the time the street was cut through, this old Poquelann did all he could to prevent it.  It was owing to a certain connection which I had with that affair that I heard a ghost story [smiles, followed by a sudden dignified check]—­ghost story, which, of course, I am not going to relate; but I may say that my profound conviction, arising from a prolonged study of that story, is, that this old villain, John Poquelann, has his brother locked up in that old house.  Now, if this is so, and we can fix it on him, I merely suggest that we can make the matter highly useful.  I don’t know,” he added, beginning to sit down, “but that it is an action we owe to the community—­hem!”

“How do you propose to handle the subject?” asked the President.

“I was thinking,” said the speaker, “that, as a Board of Directors, it would be unadvisable for us to authorize any action involving trespass; but if you, for instance, Mr. President, should, as it were, for mere curiosity, request some one, as, for instance, our excellent Secretary, simply as a personal favor, to look into the matter—­this is merely a suggestion.”

The Secretary smiled sufficiently to be understood that, while he certainly did not consider such preposterous service a part of his duties as secretary, he might, notwithstanding, accede to the President’s request; and the Board adjourned.

Little White, as the Secretary was called, was a mild, kind-hearted little man, who, nevertheless, had no fear of any thing, unless it was the fear of being unkind.

“I tell you frankly,” he privately said to the President, “I go into this purely for reasons of my own.”

The next day, a little after nightfall, one might have descried this little man slipping along the rear fence of the Poquelin place, preparatory to vaulting over into the rank, grass-grown yard, and bearing himself altogether more after the manner of a collector of rare chickens than according to the usage of secretaries.

The picture presented to his eye was not calculated to enliven his mind.  The old mansion stood out against the western sky, black and silent.  One long, lurid pencil-stroke along a sky of slate was all that was left of daylight.  No sign of life was apparent; no light at any window, unless it might have been on the side of the house hidden from view.  No owls were on the chimneys, no dogs were in the yard.