Staring from one to the other in speechless wonder at what this fresh outrage upon the down-trodden South could mean, Montgomery allowed them to replace his Indian club in his hand, and conduct him back to the public road; where, to his increased bewilderment, he found Gospeler Simpson and the Ritualistic organist.

“What is the matter, gentlemen?” he asked, in great agitation:  “must I take the oath of Loyalty; or am I required by Yankee philanthropy to marry a negress?”

At the sound of his voice, Mr. Bumstead left the shoulder of Mr. Simpson, upon which he had been leaning with great weight, and, coming forward in three long skips, deliberately wound his right hand in the speaker’s neck-tie.

“Where are those nephews—­where’s that umbrella?” demanded the organist, with considerable ferocity.

“Nephews!—­umbrella!” gasped the other.

“The EDWINS—­bone handle,” explained Mr. Bumstead, lurching towards his captive.

“Mr. Montgomery,” interposed the Gospeler, sadly, Mr. DROOD went out with you last night, late, from his estimable uncle’s lodgings, and has not been seen since.  Where is he?”

“He went back into the house again, sir, after I had walked him up and down the road a few times.”

“Well, then, where’s that umbrella?” roared the organist, who seemed quite beside himself with grief and excitement.

“Mr. Bumstead, pray be more calm,” implored the Reverend OCTAVIUS.

“Mr. Montgomery, this agitated gentleman’s nephew has been mysteriously missing ever since he went out with you at midnight:  also an alpaca umbrella.”

“Upon my honor, I know nothing of either,” ejaculated the unhappy Southerner.

Mr. Bumstead, still holding him by the neck-tie, cast a fiery and unsettled glance around at nothing in particular; then ground his teeth audibly, and scowled.

“My boy’s missing!” he said, hissingly.—­“Y’understand?—­he’s missing.—­I must insist upon searching the prisoner.”

In the presence of Gospeler and constables, and loftily regardless alike of their startled wonder and the young man’s protests, the maddened uncle of the lost DROOD deliberately examined all the captive’s pockets in succession.  In one of them was a penknife, which, after thoughtfully trying it upon his pink nails, he abstractedly placed in his own pocket.  Searching next the overwhelmed Southerner’s travelling-satchel, he found in it an apple, which he first eyed with marked suspicion, and then bit largely into, as though half expecting to find in it some traces of his nephew.

“I’ll keep this suspicious fruit,” he remarked, with a hollow laugh; and, bearing unreservedly upon the nearer arm of the hapless Montgomery, and eating audibly as he surged onward, he started on the return march for Bumsteadville.