went on again: this time the air was "Pretty Polly Oliver."

I crept back again, and began to hammer more loudly at the door.
"Come," said I, "whoever this may be inside, I'll see for myself at
any rate," and with that I lifted the latch and gave the door a heavy
kick. It flew open quite easily (it had not even been locked), and I
found myself in a low kitchen. The room was empty, but the relics of
supper lay on the deal table, and the remains of what must have been
a noble fire were still smouldering on the hearthstone. A crazy,
rusty blunderbuss hung over the fireplace. This, with a couple of
rough chairs, a broken bacon-rack, and a small side-table, completed
the furniture of the place. No; for as I sat down to make a meal off
the remnants of supper, something lying on the lime-ash floor beneath
this side-table caught my eye. I stepped forward and picked it up.

It was a barrister's wig.

"This is a queer business," thought I; and I laid it on the table
opposite me as I went on with my supper. It was a "gossan" wig, as
we call it in our parts; a wig grown yellow and rusty with age and
wear. It looked so sly and wicked as it lay there, and brought back
the events of the day so sharply that a queer dread took me of being
discovered with it. I pulled out my pistol, loaded it (they had
given me back both the powder and pistol found on me when I was
taken), and laid it beside my plate. This done, I went on with my
supper--it was an excellent cold capon--and all the time the flute
up-stairs kept toot-tootling without stopping, except to change the
tune. It gave me "Hearts of Oak," "Why, Soldiers, why?" "Like Hermit
Poor," and "Come, Lasses and Lads," before I had fairly cleared the
dish.

"And now," thought I, "I have had a good supper; but there are still
three things to be done. In the first place I want drink, in the
second I want a bed, and in the third I want to thank this kind
person, whoever he is, for his hospitality. I'm not going to begin
life No. 2 with housebreaking."

I rose, slipped the pistol into my tail-pocket, and followed the
sound up the ramshackle stairs. My footsteps made such a racket on
their old timbers as fairly to frighten me, but it never disturbed
the flute-player. He had harked back again to "Like Hermit Poor" by
this time, and the dolefulness of it was fit to make the dead cry
out, but he went whining on until I reached the head of the stairs
and struck a rousing knock o