[Illustration:  “In a pitiable state of ‘nerves’ he sat at the extreme end of a bench.”]

The committee of the Ancient Order of Camels took the news calmly, and classed it with pink rats and other abnormalities.  In reply to Mrs. Blows’s request for the capital sum, they expressed astonishment that she could be willing to tear herself away from the hero’s grave, and spoke of the pain which such an act on her part would cause him in the event of his being conscious of it.  In order to show that they were reasonable men, they allowed her an extra shilling that week.

The hero threw the dole on the bedroom floor, and in a speech bristling with personalities, consigned the committee to perdition.  The confinement was beginning to tell upon him, and two nights afterward, just before midnight, he slipped out for a breath of fresh air.

It was a clear night, and all Gravelton with one exception, appeared to have gone to bed.  The exception was Police-constable Collins, and he, after tracking the skulking figure of Mr. Blows and finally bringing it to bay in a doorway, kept his for a fort-night.  As a sensible man, Mr. Blows took no credit to himself for the circumstance, but a natural feeling of satisfaction at the discomfiture of a member of a force for which he had long entertained a strong objection could not be denied.

Gravelton debated this new appearance with bated breath, and even the purblind committee of the Camels had to alter their views.  They no longer denied the supernatural nature of the manifestations, but, with a strange misunderstanding of Mr. Blows’s desires, attributed his restlessness to dissatisfaction with the projected tombstone, and, having plenty of funds, amended their order for a plain stone at ten guineas to one in pink marble at twenty-five.

“That there committee,” said Mr. Blows to his wife, in a trembling voice, as he heard of the alteration—­“that there committee seem to think that they can play about with my money as they like.  You go and tell ’em you won’t ’ave it.  And say you’ve given up the idea of going to Australia and you want the money to open a shop with.  We’ll take a little pub somewhere.”

Mrs. Blows went, and returned in tears, and for two entire days her husband, a prey to gloom, sat trying to evolve fresh and original ideas for the possession of the money.  On the evening of the second day he became low-spirited, and going down to the kitchen took a glass from the dresser and sat down by the beer-cask.

Almost insensibly he began to take a brighter view of things.  It was Saturday night and his wife was out.  He shook his head indulgently as he thought of her, and began to realise how foolish he had been to entrust such a delicate mission to a woman.  The Ancient Order of Camels wanted a man to talk to them—­a man who knew the world and could assail them with unanswerable arguments.  Having applied every known test to make sure that the cask was empty, he took his cap from a nail and sallied out into the street.