d.

"Awfully sorry, MUSH, but I must go. I've got to shave a dead poodle,
and the men are coming to stuff it at nine o'clock to-night. It's for a
lady--_noblesse oblige_, you know. I'll finish your hat when I come
back."

In a second he was gone. CYRIL MUSH replaced the lining in his hat, and
placed it on his head. He went out into the streets. He was wondering
what poodle it was which Mr. ASSID ROPES had gone to shave. Could it be
the same? No, most certainly not. So of course it was the same.

In the meanwhile Mr. ROPES had arrived at the house, and had been
ushered into the chamber of death. The light was very bad, and he
happened to cut the animal while engaged in shaving it.

"Very sorry, Sir," said Mr. ROPES, from force of habit, "but it's not my
fault. You've got a pimple there, and you jerked your head just as I was
going over it. A little powder will put that all right."

[Illustration]

Suddenly it flashed across him that the poodle was not dead if the blood
flowed. He rushed out of the room, and found himself confronted by a
handsome, wicked-looking man, of about thirty.

"Excuse me, Sir, but that poodle's not dead. It's in a trance. Just run
down to the kitchen and fetch me some brandy, some blankets, and some
hot bricks, and I'll bring it round."

"The dog _is_ dead, and in a very few hours he'll be stuffed," was the
cruel reply. "You needn't trouble to bring it round. If you've brought
your tackle round, you can shave it."

"I've been shaving it--and that's how I know."

A door opened on the other side of the passage, and a fair young girl
came out in tears and a black dress.

"What's the matter, ALGERNON?" she said.

"It's nothing, ALICE. This idiot says that _Tommy's_ not dead."

With one wild yell of joy, a yell that broke the gas-globes, and
unlinked carriages at all the principal London railway stations, ALICE
SMITH fell senseless on the floor.

"Out you get!" exclaimed her cousin ALGERNON to Mr. ROPES. "If the dog
is not dead, come back in two hours, and _prove_ it--otherwise it will
be dead, and stuffed too."

"Now then," said ALGERNON, when Mr. ROPES had gone, "if _Tommy Atkins_
is not dead, he soon will be." He grasped his walking-stick, and tried
the door of the room. It was locked. Mr. ROPES had locked it, and taken
the key!

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "Baffled! Baffled! Kindly turn the lime-light off
the swooned maiden, and throw it on to me. Sympathetic music from the
violins, i