“Is it?  And what are you going to do about it?—­telegraph?”

“No.  We will be there in person.  We will ourselves prevent the crime and seize the criminals.  I shall have a word in season for that family, Sir.  I wish to improve the occasion for its conversion to a full belief in these sublime mysteries.  Mr. Riley, with three of my people, will meet me at the station.  We shall be in New Haven by eleven, stay an hour or two in some hotel, and at half past one go to the house.”

“My dear Sir, I remonstrate,” exclaimed I.  “You will get laughed at.  You will get shot at.  You will get into disgrace.  You will get into jail.  For pity’s sake, give up this quixotic expedition, and grant me an absolution before the fact for kicking Riley out of doors.”

The Doctor turned his face away from me and walked to a window.  His air of profound, yet uncomplaining grief, struck me with compunction, and, following him, I held out my hand.

“Come, excuse me,” said I.  “Look here,—­if this comes true, I’ll quit geology and go to working miracles to-morrow.  I’ll come over to your faith, if I have to wade through my reason.”

“Will you?” he responded, joyfully.  “You will never repent it.  There, shake hands.  I am not angry.  Your unbelief is natural, though saddening.  To-morrow night, then, come and see me again and I will tell you the whole adventure.  I must be off to the train now.  Excuse me for leaving you.  Would you like to sit here awhile and look at Humby’s ’Modern Miracles’?”

“No, thank you.  Prefer to look at your miracles.  I am going with you.”

“Going with me?  Are you?  I’m delighted!” he cried, not in the least startled or embarrassed by the proposition.  “Now you shall see with your own eyes.”

“Yes, if it isn’t too dark, I will,—­word of a geologist.  Well, shall we start?”

“But won’t you have a weapon?  We go armed, of course, inasmuch as the scoundrels may show fight when we come to arrest them.”

“I don’t want it,” said I, gently pushing away a pocket-pistol, about as dangerous as a squirt.  “All the burglars you see to-night may shoot at me, and welcome.”

We walked to the station, and found our party waiting for the Boston train.  The Doctor introduced me, with much affectionate effusion and many particulars concerning my family and early history, to the man of unearthly lingoes.  He was a tall, lean, flat-chested, cadaverous being, of about forty, his sandy hair nicely sleeked, thin yellow whiskers spattered on his hollow cheeks, his nose short and snub, his face small, wilted, and so freckled that it could hardly be said to have a complexion.  In short, by its littleness, by its yellowness, by its appearance of dusty dryness, this singular physiognomy reminded me so strongly of a pinch of snuff, that I almost sneezed at sight of it.  His diminutive green eyes were fringed with ragged flaxen lashes, and seemed to be very loose