the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed; and himself,
wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of the night.
Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have
been a day before, and the three of them held a very long consultation in
the Professor's room. At the end of it the Colonel left the hotel door
carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as
far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it. Later on the smoke
of a burning ascended from the back premises of the Globe.

Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the
hotel I must confess I do not recollect. The Professor was somehow
cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of the
reputation of a troubled house.

There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if
the Colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen
out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what
more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done than
frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it save
the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel, who
remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the opinion
that if Parkins had closed with it it could really have done very little,
and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole thing, he said,
served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome.

There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the
Professor's views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to
be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice
hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a
field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless
night.

THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS

I

_Verum usque in praesentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici de
abscondito quodam istius Abbatis Thomae thesauro, quem saepe,
quanquam ahduc incassum, quaesiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim
Thomam adhuc florida in aetate existentem ingentem auri massam circa
monasterium defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi
esset, cum risu respondere solitus erat: 'Job, Johannes, et Zacharias
vel vobis vel posteris indicabunt'; idemque aliquando adiicere se
inventuris minime invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera,