ts about me? I'll have the law of you."

Captain Sellers smiled vaguely and shook his head.

"I'll prosecute you," bellowed Captain Trimblett. "You're shamming, you
old fox. You can hear what I say plain enough. You've been spreading
reports that I'm going to--"

He stopped and looked round just in time. Attracted by the volume of his
voice, the housekeeper had come to the back door, two faces appeared
at the next-door windows, and the back of Mr. Peter Truefitt was just
disappearing inside his summer-house.

"I know you are talking," said Captain Sellers, plaintively, "because I
can see your lips moving. It's a great affliction--deafness."

He fell back in his chair again, and, with a crafty old eye cocked on
the windows next door, fingered a scanty tuft of white hair on his chin
and smiled weakly. Captain Trimblett controlled himself by an effort,
and, selecting a piece of paper from a bundle of letters in his pocket,
made signs for a pencil. Captain Sellers shook his head; then he glanced
round uneasily as Trimblett, with an exclamation of satisfaction, found
an inch in his waistcoat-pocket and began to write. He nodded sternly at
the paper when he had finished, and handed it to Captain Sellers.

The old gentleman received it with a pleasant smile, and, extricating
himself from his chair in a remarkable fashion considering his age,
began to fumble in his pockets. He went through them twice, and his
countenance, now lighted by hope and now darkened by despair, conveyed
to Captain Trimblett as accurately as speech could have done the
feelings of a man to whom all reading matter, without his spectacles, is
mere dross.

"I can't find my glasses," said Captain Sellers, at last, lowering
himself into the chair. Then he put his hand to his ear and turned
toward his visitor. "Try again," he said, encouragingly.

Captain Trimblett eyed him for a moment in helpless wrath, and then,
turning on his heel, marched back through the house, and after standing
irresolute for a second or two entered his own. The front room was
empty, and from the silence he gathered that Mrs. Chinnery was out. He
filled his pipe, and throwing himself into an easy-chair sought to calm
his nerves with tobacco, while he tried to think out his position.
His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Truefitt, and
something in the furtive way that gentleman eyed him as he came into the
room only served to increase his uneasiness.

"Very w