to my
bedroom and strangled them one by one. They went off quite peaceably;
the only difficulty was in the disposal of the bodies. I thought of
laying them on the curb-stone in different passages; but I was afraid
the police might not see that they were waits, in which case I might be
put to inconvenience. So I took a spade and dug two (or three) large
holes in the quadrangle of the inn. Then I carried the bodies to the
place in my rug, one at a time, shoved them in, and covered them up.
A close observer might have noticed in that part of the quadrangle, for
some time after, a small mound, such as might be made by an elbow under
the bed-clothes. Nobody, however, seems to have descried it, and yet
I see it often even now in my dreams.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE PERILS OF NOT SMOKING.

[Illustration]

When the Arcadians heard that I had signed an agreement to give up
smoking they were first incredulous, then sarcastic, then angry. Instead
of coming, as usual, to my room, they went one night in a body to
Pettigrew's, and there, as I afterward discovered, a scheme for "saving
me" was drawn up. So little did they understand the firmness of my
character, that they thought I had weakly yielded to the threats of
the lady referred to in my first chapter, when, of course, I had only
yielded to her arguments, and they agreed to make an appeal on my behalf
to her. Pettigrew, as a married man himself, was appointed intercessor,
and I understand that the others not only accompanied him to her door,
but waited in an alley until he came out. I never knew whether the
reasoning brought to bear on the lady was of Pettigrew's devising, or
suggested by Jimmy and the others, but it was certainly unselfish of
Pettigrew to lie so freely on my account. At the time, however, the
plot enraged me, for the lady conceived the absurd idea that I had sent
Pettigrew to her. Undoubtedly it was a bold stroke. Pettigrew's scheme
was to play upon his hostess's attachment for me by hinting to her that
if I gave up smoking I would probably die. Finding her attentive rather
than talkative, he soon dared to assure her that he himself loathed
tobacco and only took it for his health.

"By the doctor's orders, mark you," he said, impressively; "Dr.
Southwick, of Hyde Park."

She expressed polite surprise at this, and then Pettigrew, believing he
had made an impression, told his story as concocted.

"My own case," he said, "is one much