trap was broken in two. Opening it, there were his toilet articles
and all his other treasures,--even the cherished miniature,--not much
the worse for their wetting. So there could no longer be any doubt
that his uncle had come back. Where was he?

That queer fancy about the clock stuck in Balder's head! Somehow or
other it must be connected with Doctor Glyphic. The haversack, dropped
at its foot, was direct evidence. Yet, did ever wise man harbor notion
so irrational! Its manifest absurdity only excuse for thinking it.

With no declared object in view, Balder grasped the clock by its high
shoulders and shook it, but with no result. He next struck the smartly
with clenched fist: the blow sounded,--not hollow, but close and
muffled! The case either solid, or filled with something that deadened
the echo. Filled with what? who would think of putting anything in a
clock? It was big enough to be sure, to hold a man, if he could find a
way to get in!

The sequence of thoughts is often obscure, but Balder's next idea,
wild as it was, could hardly be called incoherent. A man might be
conceived to be in the clock; perhaps a man was in it; but if so, the
man could be none other than Doctor Hiero Glyphic!

This conclusion once imagined, suspense was unendurable. The logician
tried to open the front of the case, but it was riveted fast. With
impetuous fingers he then wrenched at the disc. With a sound like a
rusty screech, it came off in his hands. The lamp so flickered that
Balder feared it was going out, and even at this epoch had to look
round to reassure himself. Meanwhile, a pungent, but not unpleasant
odor saluted his nostrils: he turned back to the clock,--a clock no
longer!--and beheld the unmistakable lineaments of his worthy uncle
peeping forth with half-shut eyes from the place where the dial-plate
had been.

The nephew dropped the dial-plate, and it was shattered on the granite
floor. He was badly frightened. There was no delusion about the
face,--it was a sufficiently peculiar one; and the miniature portrait,
though doing the Doctor's beauty at least justice, was accurate enough
to identify him by. This was no unsubstantial apparition,--no brain
phantom, to waver and vanish, leaving only an uncomfortable doubt
whether it had been at all. Stolid, undeniable matter was, peering
phlegmatically between its wrinkled eyelids.

But admitting that now, at last, we have lighted upon the genuine and
authentic Doctor Glyph