himself, not intentionally, may be; possibly he had fallen
overboard while intoxicated.

The late Mr. Buckle has informed us that death by drowning is regulated
by laws as inviolable and beautiful as those of the solar system; that
a certain percentage of the earth's population is bound to drown itself
annually, whether it wants to or not. It may be presumed, then, that
Rivermouth's proper quota of dead bodies was washed ashore during the
ensuing two months. There had been gales off the coast and pleasure
parties on the river, and between them they had managed to do a ghastly
business. But Mr. O'Rourke failed to appear among the flotsam and jetsam
which the receding tides left tangled in the piles of the River-mouth
wharves. This convinced Margaret that Larry had proved a too tempting
morsel to some buccaneering shark, or had fallen a victim to one of
those immense schools of fish which seem to have a yearly appointment
with the fishermen on this coast. From that day Margaret never saw a cod
or a mackerel brought into the house without an involuntary shudder. She
averted her head in making up the fish-balls, as if she half dreaded to
detect a faint aroma of whiskey about them. And, indeed, why might not a
man fall into the sea, be eaten, say, by a halibut, and reappear on the
scene of his earthly triumphs and defeats in the noncommittal form of
hashed fish?

"Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

But, perhaps, as the conservative Horatio suggests, 't were to consider
too curiously to consider so.

Mr. Bilkins had come to adopt Margaret's explanation of O'Rourke's
disappearance. He was undoubtedly drowned; had most likely drowned
himself. The hat picked up on the wharf was strong circumstantial
evidence in that direction. But one feature of the case staggered Mr.
Bilkins. O'Rourke's violin had also disappeared. Now, it required no
great effort to imagine a man throwing himself overboard under the
influence of _mania a potu_; but it was difficult to conceive of a man
committing violinicide! If the fellow went to drown himself, why did he
take his fiddle with him? He might as well have taken an umbrella or
a German student-lamp. This question troubled Mr. Bilkins a good deal
first and last. But one thing was indisputable: the man was gone--and
had evidently gone by water.

It was now that Margaret invested her husband with charms of mind and
person not calcula