time of Benvenuto
Cellini; the bibliophile finds creamy vellum folios and rare Alduses and
Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected bookstalls; the numismatist has
but to stretch forth his palm to have priceless coins drop into it. My
own weakness is odd people, and I am constantly encountering them. It
was plain that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at
Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too brief an
opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I resolved to devote my
spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinctively recognizing in him an
unfamiliar species. My professional work in the vicinity of Greenton
left my evenings and occasionally an afternoon unoccupied; these
intervals I purposed to employ in studying and classifying my
fellow-boarder. It was necessary, as a preliminary step, to learn
something of his previous history, and to this end I addressed myself to
Mr. Sewell that same night,

"I do not want to seem inquisitive," I said to the landlord, as he was
fastening up the bar, which, by the way, was the _salle a manger_ and
general sitting-room--"I do not want to seem inquisitive, but your
friend Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark this morning at breakfast
which--which was not altogether clear to me."

"About Mehetabel?" asked Mr. Sewell, uneasily.

"Yes."

"Well, I wish he wouldn't!"

"He was friendly enough in the course of conversation to hint to me that
he had not married the young woman, and seemed to regret it."

"No, he didn't marry Mehetabel."

"May I inquire _why_ he didn't marry Mehetabel?"

"Never asked her. Might have married the girl forty times. Old Elkins's
daughter, over at K----. She'd have had him quick enough. Seven years,
off and on, he kept company with Mehetabel, and then she died."

"And he never asked her?"

"He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he didn't think of it. When she was dead
and gone, then Silas was struck all of a heap--and that's all about it."

Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to tell me anything more, and
obviously there was more to tell. The topic was plainly disagreeable to
him for some reason or other, and that unknown reason of course piqued
my curiosity.

As I was absent from dinner and supper that day, I did not meet Mr.
Jaffrey again until the following morning at breakfast. He had recovered
his bird-like manner, and was full of a mysterious assassination that
had just taken place in New York, all the thrilling details of w