ing the books marshalled before me. Roving amongst them, I pulled
out, entirely at random, a thin, worn duodecimo, that was thrust well
back at a shelf end, as if it shrank from comparison with its prosperous
and portly neighbours. Nothing but chance impelled me to the choice; and
I don't know to this day what the ragged volume was about. It opened
naturally at a marker that lay in it--a folded slip of paper, yellow with
age; and glancing at this, a printed name caught my eye.

With some stir of curiosity, I spread the slip out. It was a title-page
to a volume, of poems, presumably; and the author was James Shrike.

I uttered an exclamation, and turned, book in hand.

"An author!" I said. "You an author, Major Shrike!"

To my surprise, he snapped round upon me with something like a glare of
fury on his face. This the more startled me as I believed I had reason to
regard him as a man whose principles of conduct had long disciplined a
temper that was naturally hasty enough.

Before I could speak to explain, he had come hurriedly across the room
and had rudely snatched the paper out of my hand.

"How did this get--" he began; then in a moment came to himself, and
apologized for his ill manners.

"I thought every scrap of the stuff had been destroyed", he said, and
tore the page into fragments. "It is an ancient effusion, doctor--perhaps
the greatest folly of my life; but it's something of a sore subject with
me, and I shall be obliged if you'll not refer to it again."

He courted my forgiveness so frankly that the matter passed without
embarrassment; and we had our game and spent a genial evening together.
But memory of the queer little scene stuck in my mind, and I could not
forbear pondering it fitfully.

Surely here was a new side-light that played upon my friend and superior
a little fantastically.

* * * * *

Conscious of a certain vague wonder in my mind, I was traversing the
prison, lost in thought, after my sociable evening with the Governor,
when the fact that dim light was issuing from the open door of cell
number 49 brought me to myself and to a pause in the corridor outside.

Then I saw that something was wrong with the cell's inmate, and that my
services were required.

The medium was struggling on the floor, in what looked like an epileptic
fit, and Johnson and another warder were holding him from doing an injury
to himself.

The younger man welcomed my appearanc