tack
that had been left over when the floor matting was laid provoked
certain exclamations calculated to exorcise the demon--or should I say
alarm the angel?--of decorative art, and he was soon wrapped in the
slumber of the just, undisturbed by esthetic visions.

[Illustration: WILL'S MASTERPIECE.]

After a time he became dimly conscious of a sense of alarm. At first,
scarcely roused to understand the fear or its cause, he soon recognized
a noise that filled his soul with terror--the stealthy sound of a
midnight assassin; a faint rasping, intermittent and cautious, a sawing
or filing the bolt of his door. He made a motion to spring up, upset a
glass of water by his bedside and--frightened the rats from the
particular hole they were trying to gnaw. In their sudden fright they
dropped all pretense of secresy. They called each other aloud by name
and scattered acorns, matches, butternuts and ears of corn in every
direction, which rolled along the ceiling, fell down the partitions,
knocked the mortar off the back of the laths and raised such a noisy
commotion as ought to have roused the whole neighborhood. No one
stirred, and the architect once more addressed himself to blessed
sleep, feeling that morning must soon put an end to his tribulations.
How long he slept he had no means of knowing. It was still dark when he
awoke: dark but not still. A distant footfall tinkled on the matted
floor, followed by another and another in rapid, measured succession.
Could there be a cat or a dog in the room? He could see nothing. The
moon was gone and the room was dark as Egypt. Possibly some animal
escaped from a traveling menagerie had hidden in the chamber. He lay
still and listened while the step--step--step--kept on without break or
change. Presently he thought of ghosts, and as ghosts were the one
thing he was not afraid of he turned over and went to sleep for good
just as the village clock struck eleven.

In the morning when he awoke, it rained. The ghostly footfalls
continued; in fact, they had considerably increased, but they were no
longer ghostly. A dark spot on the ceiling directly over the portfolio
of plans he had laid on the floor betrayed their source. Portfolio and
contents were as well soaked as if the fire companies had been at
them--all from a leak in the roof.

After breakfast, when Jill proposed to spend the time till it cleared
off in looking over the plans he had brought, the architect was obliged
to explain