I smiled grimly as my eyes fell upon the little box of capsules.  My first thought was that I should take two of them, but then I shook my head.  “It would be utterly useless,” I said; “they would do me no good.”

In the course of the next morning I found myself alone.  I put on my cap, lighted a pipe, and started down the flag walk to the gate.  In a few moments I heard running steps behind me, and, turning, I saw Miss Edith.  “Don’t look cross,” she said.  “Were you going for a walk?”

I scouted the idea of crossness, and said that I had thought of taking a stroll.

“That seems funny,” said she, “for nobody in this house ever goes out for a lonely walk.  But you cannot go just yet.  There’s a man at the back of the house with a letter for you.”

“A letter!” I exclaimed.  “Who in the world could have sent a letter to me here?”

“The only way to find out,” she answered, “is to go and see.”

Under a tree at the back of the house I found a young negro man, very warm and dusty, who handed me a letter, which, to my surprise, bore no address.  “How do you know this is for me?” said I.

He was a good-natured looking fellow.  “Oh, I know it’s for you, sir,” said he.  “They told me at the little tavern—­the Holly something—­that I’d find you here.  You’re the gentleman that had a bicycle tire eat up by a bear, ain’t you?”

I admitted that I was, and still, without opening the letter, I asked him, where it came from.

“That was given to me in New York, sir,” said he, “by a Dago, one of these I-talians.  He gave me the money to go to Blackburn Station in the cars, and then I walked over to the tavern.  He said he thought I’d find you there, sir.  He told me just what sort of a lookin’ man you was, sir, and that letter is for you, and no mistake.  He didn’t know your name, or he’d put it on.”

“Oh, it is from the owner of the bear,” said I.

“Yes, sir,” said the man, “that’s him.  He did own a bear—­he told me—­that eat up your tire.”

I now tore open the blank envelope, and found it contained a letter on a single sheet, and in this was a folded paper, very dirty.  The letter was apparently written in Italian, and had no signature.  I ran my eye along the opening lines, and soon found that it would be a very difficult piece of business for me to read it.  I was a fair French and German scholar, but my knowledge of Italian was due entirely to its relationship with Latin.  I told the man to rest himself somewhere, and went to the house, and, finding Miss Edith, I informed her that I had a letter from the bear man, and asked her if she could read Italian.

“I studied the language at school,” she said, “but I have not practised much.  However, let us go into the library—­there is a dictionary there—­and perhaps we can spell it out.”

We spread the open sheet upon the library-table, and laid the folded paper near by, and, sitting side by side, with a dictionary before us, we went to work.  It was very hard work.