serving-man. Such an unequal servant he had never seen--at times full of
intelligence and snap, again as dumb as the bog-trotters of Ireland.

"What was the matter with you yesterday?" asked the deaf man of Mike one
day.

"Me head, yer honor!"

"What ails your head?"

"Vare-tigo!"

"How came that?"

"Falling out of a ship!"

"What did you strike but water?"

"Wood; it nearly was the death of me. For weeks I was wid a cracked head
and a cracked leg, yer honor!"

Still there was something evasive about the man, and he had as many
moods and lights as a sea Proteus, ugly and common, like that batrachian
order, but often enkindled and exceedingly satisfactory as a servant. He
often forgot the place where he left off a certain day's work, and it
had to be recalled to him. He was irregular, too, in going and coming,
and was quite as likely to come when not wanted as not to be on the spot
when due and expected. Duff Salter made up his mind that all the Eastern
people must have bumped their heads and became subject to vertigo.

One day Duff Salter received this note:

"MR. DEAF DUFF: Excuse the familiarity, but the coincidence amuses
me. I want you to make me a visit this evening after dark at my
quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street
nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of
Venus to-night, as I expect--there being signs of it in the milky
way,--you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on
account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at my
brother's den for CAL."

"I will not be in to-night, Mike," exclaimed Duff Salter a little while
afterward. "You can have all the evening to yourself. Where do you spend
your spare time?"

"On Traity Island," replied Mike with a grin. "I doesn't like Kinsington
afther dark. They say it has ghosts, sur."

"But only the ghosts of they killed as they crossed from Treaty Island."

"Sure enough! But I've lost belafe in ghosts since they have become so
common. Everybody belaves in thim in Kinsington, and I prefer to be
exclusive and sciptical, yer honor."

"Didn't you tell me yesterday that you believed in spirits going and
coming and hoping and waiting, and it gave you great comfort?"

"Did I, sur? I forgit it inthirely. It must have been a bad day for my
vartigo."

Duff Salter looked at his man long and earnestly, and