kirt as he
spoke. "Have I presumed too greatly in coming to request the favor of a
short private interview?"

Slipping quickly into a more genteel but rather rigid position on his
chair, the Ritualistic organist made an airy pass at him with the
accordion.

"Any doors where youwasborn, sir?"

"There were, Mr. BUMSTEAD."

"People ever knock when th' wanted t'-come-in, sir?"

"Why, I did knock at your door," answered Mr. CLEWS, conciliatingly. "I
knocked and knocked, but you kept on playing; and after I finally took
the liberty to come in and pull you by the coat, it was ten minutes
before you found it out."

In an attempt to look into the speaker's inmost soul, Mr. BUMSTEAD fell
into a doze, from which the crash of his accordion to the floor aroused
him in time to behold a very curious proceeding on the part of Mr.
CLEWS. That gentleman successively peered up the chimney, through the
windows, and under the furniture of the room, and then stealthily took a
seat near his rather languid observer.

"Mr. BUMSTEAD, you know me as a temporary boarder under the same roof
with you. Other people know me merely as a dead-beat. May I trust you
with a secret?"

A pair of blurred and glassy eyes looked into his from under a huge
straw hat, and a husky question followed his:

"Did y' ever read WORDSWORTH'S poem-'f-th' Excursion, sir?"

"Not that I remember."

"Then, sir," exclaimed the organist, with spasmodic animation--"then's
not in your hicsperience to know howssleepy-I am-jus'-now."

"You had a nephew," said his subtle companion, raising his voice, and
not appearing to heed the last remark.

"An' 'numbrella," added Mr. BUMSTEAD, feebly.

"I say you had a nephew," reiterated the other, "and that nephew
disappeared in a very mysterious manner. Now I'm a literary man--"

"C'd tell that by y'r-headerhair," murmured the Ritualistic organist.
Left y'r wife yet, sir?"

"I say I'm a literary man," persisted TRACEY CLEWS, sharply. "I'm going
to write a great American Novel, called 'The Amateur Detective,' founded
upon the story of this very EDWIN DROOD, and have come to Bumsteadville
to get all the particulars. I've picked up considerable from Gospeler
SIMPSON, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, and even the woman from the Mulberry street
place who came after you the other morning. But now I want to know
something from you.--What has become of your nephew?"

He put the question suddenly, and with a kind of suppressed leap at him
whom