He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved most properly throughout, and is to make enquiries at Southampton.  In the meanwhile, what was I to do?  I left my address and brought the barrel home; but, remembering an old adage, I determined not to open it except in the presence of my lawyer.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Michael.  ’I don’t see any cause to worry.  The Hercules has stuck upon the road.  It will drop in tomorrow or the day after; and as for the barrel, depend upon it, it’s a testimonial from one of your young ladies, and probably contains oysters.’

‘O, don’t speak so loud!’ cried the little artist.  ’It would cost me my place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides, why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in Signor Ricardi’s hand?’

‘Well, let’s have a look at it,’ said Michael.  ’Let’s roll it forward to the light.’

The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end before the fire.

‘It’s heavy enough to be oysters,’ remarked Michael judiciously.

‘Shall we open it at once?’ enquired the artist, who had grown decidedly cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed his clerical collar in the wastepaper basket, hung his clerical coat upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other, struck the first blow of the evening.

‘That’s the style, William Dent’ cried Michael.  ’There’s fire for—­your money!  It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies—­a sort of Cleopatra business.  Have a care and don’t stave in Cleopatra’s head.’

But the sight of Pitman’s alacrity was infectious.  The lawyer could sit still no longer.  Tossing his cigar into the fire, he snatched the instrument from the unwilling hands of the artist, and fell to himself.  Soon the sweat stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his chisel testified to misdirected energies.

A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be resolved into its elements.  Such was the course pursued alike by the artist and the lawyer.  Presently the last hoop had been removed—­a couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground—­and what had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken and distorted boards.

In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, swathed in blankets, remained for an instant upright, and then toppled to one side and heavily collapsed before the fire.  Even as the thing subsided, an eye-glass tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman.

‘Hold your tongue!’ said Michael.  He dashed to the house door and locked it; then, with a pale face and bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside a corner of the swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering.  There was a long silence in the studio.