his chin stuck up, as if the air was not good enough
to be breathed perpendiklar like."

"And of course you followed him," I exclaimed, perceiving that Stixon
would allow me now to speak. "Without any delay you went after him."

"Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was. My dooty was to stay by the
door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion. No little
coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in doing so. As
an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a trusted official, and
responsible head footman, miss--for I were not butler till nine months
after that--my dooty was to put the big bolt in."

"And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set the
house on fire! Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened."

"Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to obleege
you, to put a bad construction upon me. You hurts me, miss, in my
tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's darter would 'a
doed. But there, they be none of them as they used to be! Master George
would 'a said, if he ever had heard it. 'Stixon, my man, you have acted
for the best, and showed a sound discretion. Stixon,' he would have
said, 'here's a George and Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.'
Ah, that sort of manliness is died out now."

This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted with
selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own recollections
of my father. But still Mr. Stixon must have suffered severely in that
conflict, and to blame him for not showing rashness was to misunderstand
his position. And so, before putting any other questions to him, I felt
in my pocket for a new half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.

Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still in the
struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful. Yet I
saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly philosophic
proverb--"the half is more than the whole." Nevertheless, he stowed away
his half, in harmony with a good old English saying.

"Now, when you were able to get up at last," I inquired, with tender
interest, "what did you see, and what did you do, and what conclusion
did you come to?"

"I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable.
Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub myself.
But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is the exercise of
his functions. And when I come ro