, and a
map, all dusty. He drew forth the map. It was coloured, and in shaky
Roman characters underneath it ran the legend, "The County of
Staffordshire." He seemed to recognise the map. On the back he read,
in his father's handwriting: "Drawn and coloured without help by my son
Edwin, aged nine."

He had utterly forgotten it. He could in no detail recall the
circumstances in which he had produced the wonderful map. A childish,
rude effort! ... Still, rather remarkable that at the age of nine
(perhaps even before he had begun to attend the Oldcastle Middle School)
he should have chosen to do a county map instead of a map of that
country beloved by all juvenile map-drawers, Ireland! He must have
copied it from the map in Lewis's Gazetteer of England and Wales...
Twenty-one years ago, nearly! He might, from the peculiar effect on
him, have just discovered the mummy of the boy that once had been
Edwin... And his father had kept the map for over twenty years. The
old cock must have been deuced proud of it once! Not that he ever said
so--Edwin was sure of that!

"Now you needn't get sentimental!" he told himself. Like Maggie he had
a fearful, an almost morbid, horror of sentimentality. But he could not
arrest the softening of his heart, as he smiled at the naivete of the
map and at his father's parental simplicity.

As he was closing the safe, Stifford, agitated, hurried into the room.

"Please, sir, Mr Clayhanger's in the Square. I thought I'd better tell
you."

"What? Father?"

"Yes, sir. He's standing opposite the chapel and he keeps looking this
way. I thought you'd like--"

Edwin turned the key, and ran forth, stumbling, as he entered the shop,
against the step-ladder which, with the paper-boy at the summit of it,
overtopped the doorway. He wondered why he should run, and why
Stifford's face was so obviously apprehensive.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

Darius Clayhanger was standing at the north-east corner of the little
Square, half-way up Duck Bank, at the edge of the pavement. And his
gaze, hesitant and feeble, seemed to be upon the shop. He merely stood
there, moveless, and yet the sight of him was most strangely
disconcerting. Edwin, who kept within the shelter of the doorway,
comprehended now the look on Stifford's face. His father had the air of
ranging round about the shop in a reconnaissance, like an Indian or a
wild animal,