ng
you waiting, Mr. DIBBLE. We've had quite a rain, sir."

His hair, collar, and shoulders being very wet from the water which had
been poured upon him during his slumber, Mr. BUMSTEAD, in his present
newly-awake frame of mind, believed that a hard shower had taken place,
and thereupon turned moody.

"We've had quite a rain, sir, since I saw you last," he repeated,
gloomily, "and I am freshly reminded of my irreparable loss."

"Such an open, spring-like character!" apostrophized the lawyer, staring
reflectively into the grate.

"Always open when it rained, and closing with a spring," said Mr.
BUMSTEAD, in soft abstraction lost.

"_Who_ closed with a spring?" queried the elder man, irascibly.

"The umbrella," sobbed JOHN BUMSTEAD.

"I was speaking of your nephew, sir!" was Mr. DIBBLE'S impatient
explanation.

Mr. BUMSTEAD stared at him sorrowfully for a moment, and then requested
Mrs. SMYTHE to step to a cupboard in the next room and immediately pour
him out a bottle of soda-water which she should find there.

"Won't you try some?" he asked the lawyer, rising limply to his feet
when the beverage was brought, and drinking it with considerable noise.

"No, thank you," returned Mr. DIBBLE.

"As you please, then," said the organist, resignedly. "Only, if you have
a headache don't blame me. (Mr. and Mrs. SMYTHE, you may place a few
cloves where I can get them, and retire.) What you have told me, Mr.
DIBBLE, concerning the breaking of the engagement between your ward and
my nephew, relieves my mind of a load. As a right-thinking man, I can no
longer suspect you of having killed EDWIN DROOD."

"Suspect ME?" screamed the aged lawyer, almost leaping into the air.

"Calm yourself," observed Mr. BUMSTEAD, quietly, the while he ate a
sedative clove. "I say that I can _not_ longer suspect you. I can not
think that a person of your age would wantonly destroy a human life
merely to obtain an umbrella."

Absolutely purple in the face, Mr. DIBBLE snatched his hat from a chair
just as the Ritualistic organist was about to sit upon it, and was on
the point of hurrying wrathfully from the room, when the entrance of
Gospeler SIMPSON arrested him.

Noting his agitation, Mr. BUMSTEAD instantly resolved to clear him from
suspicion in the new-comer's mind also.

"Reverend Sir," he said to the Gospeler, quickly, "in this sad affair we
must be just, as well as vigilant I believe Mr. DIBBLE to be as innocent
as ourselves. Whatev