ing."

"Of course not," assented his subtle counsellor; "but, in this country,
at least, chronic inebriation, clove-eating, and even opium-taking, are
strikingly alike in their aspects, and the same rules may be safely
applied to all. My advice to you is what I have given. Cause a table to
be spread in this room, exactly as it was for that memorable
Christmas-dinner; sit down to it exactly as then, and at the same hour;
go through all the same processes as nearly as you can remember; and, by
the mere force of association, you will enact all the final performances
with your umbrella and your nephew."

Mr. BUMSTEAD'S arms were folded tightly across his manly breast, and the
fine head with the straw hat upon it tilted heavily towards his bosom.

"I see't now," said he softly; "bone han'le 'n ferule. I r'member
threshing 'm with it. I can r'memb'r carry'ng--" Here Mr. BUMSTEAD burst
into tears, and made a frenzied dash at the lock of hair which he again
mistook for a fly.

"To sum up all," concluded Mr. TRACEY CLEWS, shaking him violently by
the shoulder, that he might remain awake long enough to hear it,--"to
sum up all, I am satisfied, from the familiar knowledge of this mystery
I have already gained, that the end will have something to do with
exercise in the Open Air! You'll have to go outdoors for something
important. And now good night."

"Goornight, sir."

Retiring softly to his own room, under the same roof, the author of "The
Amateur Detective" smiled at himself before the mirror with marked
complacency. "You're a long-headed one, my dead-beat friend," he said,
archly, "and your great American Novel is likely to be a respectable
success."

There sounded a crash upon a floor, somewhere in the house, and he held
his breath to listen. It was the Ritualistic organist going to bed.

(_To be Continued._)

[Footnote 1: The few remaining chapters with which it is proposed to
conclude this Adaptation of "_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_," should not
be construed as involving presumptuous attempt to divine that full
solution of the latter which the pen of its lamented author was not
permitted to reach. No further correspondence with the tenor of the
unfinished English story is intended than the Adapter will endeavor to
justify to his own conscience, and that of his reader, by at least one
unmistakable foreshadowing circumstance of the original publication,
which, strangely enough, has been wholly overlooked, thus far,