from the forge still stood the
bed on which the ancient miser had died.

'Looks like a stable, doesn't it?' commented the earl, when I had
finished my inspection. 'I am sure the old boy simply filled it up
with this rubbish to give me the trouble of examining it. Higgins
tells me that up to within a month before he died the room was
reasonably clear of all this muck. Of course it had to be, or the
place would have caught fire from the sparks of the forge. The old man
made Higgins gather all the papers he could find anywhere about the
place, ancient accounts, newspapers, and what not, even to the brown
wrapping paper you see, in which parcels came, and commanded him to
strew the floor with this litter, because, as he complained, Higgins's
boots on the boards made too much noise, and Higgins, who is not in
the least of an inquiring mind, accepted this explanation as entirely
meeting the case.'

Higgins proved to be a garrulous old fellow, who needed no urging to
talk about the late earl; indeed, it was almost impossible to deflect
his conversation into any other channel. Twenty years' intimacy with
the eccentric nobleman had largely obliterated that sense of deference
with which an English servant usually approaches his master. An
English underling's idea of nobility is the man who never by any
possibility works with his hands. The fact that Lord Chizelrigg had
toiled at the carpenter's bench; had mixed cement in the drawing-room;
had caused the anvil to ring out till midnight, aroused no admiration
in Higgins's mind. In addition to this, the ancient nobleman had been
penuriously strict in his examination of accounts, exacting the
uttermost farthing, so the humble servitor regarded his memory with
supreme contempt. I realised before the drive was finished from the
station to Chizelrigg Chase that there was little use of introducing
me to Higgins as a foreigner and a fellow-servant. I found myself
completely unable to understand what the old fellow said. His dialect,
was as unknown to me as the Choctaw language would have been, and the
young earl was compelled to act as interpreter on the occasions when
we set this garrulous talking-machine going.

The new Earl of Chizelrigg, with the enthusiasm of a boy, proclaimed
himself my pupil and assistant, and said he would do whatever he was
told. His thorough and fruitless search of the library had convinced
him that the old man was merely chaffing him, as he put it, by leavi