er those reports; each of them cost him from a week to a fortnight's
work, and the work gave him pleasure and kept him alive and willing to be
alive. It was a bitter blow to him when the Club died.

Finally, there wasn't any Corrigan Castle. He had invented that, too.

It was wonderful--the whole thing; and altogether the most ingenious and
laborious and cheerful and painstaking practical joke I have ever heard
of. And I liked it; liked to bear him tell about it; yet I have been a
hater of practical jokes from as long back as I can remember. Finally he
said--

"Do you remember a note from Melbourne fourteen or fifteen years ago,
telling about your lecture tour in Australia, and your death and burial
in Melbourne?--a note from Henry Bascomb, of Bascomb Hall, Upper
Holywell Hants."

"Yes."

"I wrote it."

"M-y-word!"

"Yes, I did it. I don't know why. I just took the notion, and carried
it out without stopping to think. It was wrong. It could have done
harm. I was always sorry about it afterward. You must forgive me. I
was Mr. Bascom's guest on his yacht, on his voyage around the world. He
often spoke of you, and of the pleasant times you had had together in his
home; and the notion took me, there in Melbourne, and I imitated his
hand, and wrote the letter."

So the mystery was cleared up, after so many, many years.

CHAPTER XXVI.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one! keep
from telling their happinesses to the unhappy.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

After visits to Maryborough and some other Australian towns, we presently
took passage for New Zealand. If it would not look too much like showing
off, I would tell the reader where New Zealand is; for he is as I was; he
thinks he knows. And he thinks he knows where Hertzegovina is; and how
to pronounce pariah; and how to use the word unique without exposing
himself to the derision of the dictionary. But in truth, he knows none
of these things. There are but four or five people in the world who
possess this knowledge, and these make their living out of it. They
travel from place to place, visiting literary assemblages, geographical
societies, and seats of learning, and springing sudden bets that these
people do not know these things. Since all people think they know them,
they are an easy prey to these adventurers. Or rather they were an easy
prey until the law interfered,