'll let bygones be bygones."

Well, it did; and John, having counted it out behind the curtain, came
forward and asked the pianist to play "God save the King"; and so,
having bowed his guests to the door, took possession of the haunted
house and lived in it many years with his bride, in high renown and
prosperity.

THREE PHOTOGRAPHS.

"Photograph all the prisoners? But why?" demanded Sir Felix
Felix-Williams. Old Canon Kempe shrugged his shoulders; Admiral
Trewbody turned the pages of the Home Secretary's letter. They sat at
the baize-covered table in the Magistrates' Room--the last of the
Visiting Justices who met, under the old _regime_, to receive the
Governor's report and look after the welfare of the prisoners in
Tregarrick County Gaol.

"But why, in the name of common-sense?" Sir Felix persisted.

"I suppose," hazarded the Admiral, "it helps the police in identifying
criminals."

"But the letter says '_all_ the prisoners.' You don't seriously tell me
that anyone wants a photograph to identify Poacher Tresize, whom I've
committed a score of times if I've committed him once? And perhaps
you'll explain to me this further demand for a 'Composite Photograph' of
all the prisoners, male and female. A 'Composite Photograph!'--have you
ever seen one?"

"No," the Admiral mused; "but I see what the Home Office is driving at.
Someone has been persuading them to test these new theories in
criminology the doctors are so busy with, especially in Italy."

"In Italy!" pish'd Sir Felix Felix-Williams.

"My dear Sir Felix, science has no nationality." The Admiral was a
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and kept a microscope to amuse
his leisure.

"It has _some_ proper limits, I should hope," Sir Felix retorted.
It annoyed him--a Chairman of Quarter Sessions for close upon twenty
years--to be told that the science of criminology was yet in its
infancy; and he glanced mischievously at the Canon, who might be
supposed to have a professional quarrel with scientific men. But the
Canon was a wary fighter and no waster of powder and shot.

"Well, well," said he, "I don't see what harm it can do, or what good.
If the Home Secretary wants his Composite Photograph, let him have it.
The only question is, Have we a photographer who knows how to make one?
Or must we send the negatives up to Whitehall?"

So the Visiting Justices sent for the local photographer and consulted
him. And he, being a clever fell