sat glaring at him in the front row
of seats, while the Professor was striving under these somewhat
unfavourable conditions to impart instruction to his pupils--a
proceeding which the Doctor's odd cast of features must have aggravated
in no small degree.

It was early in November that Parkman adopted these aggressive tactics.
On the 19th of that month Webster and the janitor of the College,
Ephraim Littlefield, were working in the upper laboratory. It was dark;
they had lit candles. Webster was reading a chemical book. As he looked
up from the book he saw Parkman standing in the doorway leading from
the lecture-room. "Dr. Webster, are you ready for me to-night?" asked
Parkman. "No," replied the other, "I am not ready to-night." After a
little further conversation in regard to the mortgage, Parkman departed
with the ominous remark, "Doctor, something must be done to-morrow."

Unfortunately the Professor was not in a position to do anything. He had
no means sufficient to meet his creditor's demands; and that creditor
was unrelenting. On the 22nd Parkman rode into Cambridge, where Webster
lived, to press him further, but failed to find him. Webster's patience,
none too great at any time, was being sorely tried. To whom could
he turn? What further resource was open to him? There was none. He
determined to see his creditor once more. At 8 o'clock on the morning
of Friday the 23rd, Webster called at Dr. Parkman's house and made the
appointment for their meeting at the Medical College at half-past
one, to which the Doctor had been seen hastening just before his
disappearance. At nine o'clock the same morning Pettee, the agent, had
called on the Professor at the College and paid him by cheque a balance
of L28 due on his lecture tickets, informing him at the same time that,
owing to the trouble with Dr. Parkman, he must decline to receive any
further sums of money on his behalf. Webster replied that Parkman was
a nervous, excitable man, subject to mental aberrations, but he added,
"You will have no further trouble with Dr. Parkman, for I have settled
with him." It is difficult to see how the Professor could have settled,
or proposed to settle, with his creditor on that day. A balance of L28
at his bank, and the L18 which Mr. Pettee had paid to him that morning,
represented the sum of Professor Webster's fortune on Friday, November
23, 1849.

Since the afternoon of that day the search for the missing Parkman had
been unremitt