“Mr. John Bumstead, sir,” explained the Judge, “is almost beside himself at the double loss he has sustained, and I think that the sight of your cane, there, maddened him with the memory it revived.”

“Why,” exclaimed the gentleman of the hair, staring in wonder, “you don’t mean to tell me that my cane looks at all like his nephew?”

“It looks a little like the stick of his umbrella, which he lost at the same time,” was the grave answer.

After walking on in thoughtful silence for a while, as though deeply pondering the striking character of a man whose great nature could thus at once unite the bereaved uncle with the sincere mourner for the dumb friend of his rainier days, Mr. Tracey CLEWS asked whether suspicion yet pointed to any one?

Yes, he was told, suspicion did point very decidedly at a certain person; but, as no specific reward had yet been offered in sufficient amount to justify the exertions of police officials having families to support; and as no lifeless body had yet been found; and as it was not exactly certain that the abstraction of an umbrella by unknown parties would justify the criminal prosecution of a person for having in his possession an Indian Club:—­in view of all these complicated circumstances, the law did not feel itself authorized to execute any assassin at present.

“And here we are, sir, at last, near our Ritualistic Church,” continued Judge Sweeney, “where we stand up for the Rite so much that strangers sometimes complain of it as fatiguing.  Upon that monument yonder, in the graveyard, you may find the epitaph I have mentioned.  What is more, here comes a rather interesting local character of ours, who cut the inscription and put up the monument.”

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN came shuffling up the road as he spoke, followed in the distance by the inevitable Smalley and a shower of promiscuous stones.

“Here, you boy!” roared Judge Sweeney, beckoning the amiable child to him with a bit of small money, “aim at all of us—­do you hear?—­and see that you don’t hit any windows.  And now, MCLAUGHLIN, how do you do?  Here is a gentleman spending the summer with us, who would like to know you.”

Old MORTARITY stared at the hair and beard, thus introduced to him, with undisguised amazement, and grimly remarked, that if the gentleman would come to see him any evening, and bring a social bottle with him, he would not allow the gentleman’s head to stand in the way of a further acquaintance.

“I shall certainly call upon you,” assented Mr. CLEWS, “if our young friend, the stone-thrower, will accept a trifle to show me the way.”

Before retiring to his bed that night, the same Mr. Tracey CLEWS took off his hair and beard, examined them closely, and then broke into a strange smile.  “No wonder they all looked at me so!” he soliloquized, “for I did have my locks on the topside backmost, and my whiskers turned the wrong way.  However, for a dead-beat, with all his imperfections on his head, I’ve formed a pretty large acquaintance for one day."[2]