“Did you know him?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said; “he was my teacher during part of my school-days here.  And then there is Mr. Burton; father is very fond of him.  He is a man of great intelligence.  It was unfortunate that you did not see more of him.”

“Perhaps you know Mr. Putney?” I said.

“No,” she answered.  “I have heard a great deal about him.  He seems to be a stiff sort of a man.  But as to Mr. Larramie, everybody likes him.  He is a great favorite throughout the county, and his son Walter is a rising young man.  I am glad you made the acquaintance of the Larramies.”

“So am I,” I said, “very glad indeed.  And, by-the-way, do you know a young man named Willoughby?  I never heard his first name, but he lives at Waterton.”

“Oh, the Willoughbys of Waterton,” she said.  “I have heard a great deal about them.  Father used to know the old gentleman.  He was a great collector of rare books, but he is dead now.  If you had met him you would have found him a man of your own tastes.”

When I was going away she stopped me for a moment.  “I forgot to ask you,” she said; “did you take any of those capsules I gave you when you were starting off on your cycle?”

“Yes,” said I, “I took some of them.”  But I could not well explain the capricious way in which I had endeavored to guard against the germs of malaria, and to call my own attention to the threatening germs of erratic fancy.

“Then you do not think they did you any good?” she said.

“I am not sure,” I replied.  “I cannot say anything about that.  But of one thing I am certain, and that is, that if any germs of any kind entered my system, it is perfectly free from them now.”

“I am glad to hear that,” she said.

It was about a week after this that I received a letter from Percy Larramie.  “I thought you would like to know about the bear,” he wrote.  “Somebody must have forgotten to feed him, and he broke his chain and got away.  He went straight over to the Holly Sprig Inn, and I expect he did that because the inn was the last place he had seen his master.  I did not know bears cared so much for masters.  He didn’t stay long at the inn, but he stayed long enough to bite a boy.  Then he went into the woods.

“As soon as we heard of it we all set off on a bear-hunt.  It was jolly fun, although I did not so much as catch a sight of him.  Father shot him at a three-hundred-foot range.  It was a Winchester rifle with a thirty-two cartridge.  It was a beautiful shot, Walter said, and I wish I had made it.

“We took his skin off and tore it only in two or three places, which can be mended.  Would you like to have the skin, and do you care particularly about the head?  If you don’t, I would like to have it, because without it the skeleton will not be perfect.”

I wrote to Percy that I did not desire so much as a single hair of the beast.  I did not tell him so, but I despised the bears of Cathay.