almost set
going. I returned to college, where I found the porter standing in the
gateway.

'The FitzTaylor is burning,' he said. 'I have been looking out for you,
sir.'

* * * * *

There is nothing more to tell. To this day no one suspects that the fire
was the work of an incendiary. The Professor has returned from the East,
but lives in great retirement. His friends say he has never quite
recovered the shock occasioned by the loss of his collection. The rest
of the museum was uninjured.

The death of Sarpedon, Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis, at Naples, was a
sudden and melancholy catastrophe, which people think affected Dr.
Groschen more than the fire. Strangely enough, he had just been dining
with the Doctor the evening before. They met at Naples purposely to bury
the hatchet. Sometimes I ask myself if I did right in setting fire to
the museum. You see, it was for the sake of others, not myself, and
Monteagle was an old friend.

THE HOOTAWA VANDYCK.

'My own experience,' said an expert to a group of mostly middle-aged men,
who spent their whole life in investigating spiritual phenomena, 'is a
peculiar one.

'It was in the early autumn of 1900. I was at Rome, where I went to
investigate the relative artistic affinity between Pietro Cavallini and
Giotto (whose position, I think, will have to be adjusted). There were
as yet only a few visitors at the Hotel Russie, chiefly maiden ladies and
casual tourists, besides a certain Scotch family and myself. Colonel
Brodie, formerly of the 69th Highlanders, was a retired officer of that
rather peppery type which always seems to belong to the stage rather than
real life, though you meet so many examples on the Continent. He
possessed an extraordinary topographical knowledge of modern Rome, the
tramway system, and the hours at which churches and galleries were open.
He would waylay you in the entrance-hall and inquire severely if you had
been to the Catacombs. In the case of an affirmative answer he would
describe an unvisited tomb or ruin, far better worth seeing; in that of a
negative, he would smile, tell you the shortest and cheapest route, and
the amount which should be tendered to the Trappist Father. Later on in
the evening, over coffee, if he was pleased with you, he would mention in
a very impressive manner, "I am, as you probably know, Colonel Brodie, of
Hootawa." His wife, beside whom I sat at table d'hote, retained traces
of former b