end he went
through all his case again, while hope (being very hard to beat, as
usual) kept on rambling over everything unsettled, with a very sage
conviction that there must be something there, and doubly sure, because
there was no sign of it.

Men at the time of life which he had reached, conducting their bodies
with less suppleness of joint, and administering food to them with
greater care, begin to have doubts about their intellect as well,
whether it can work as briskly as it used to do. And the mind, falling
under this discouragement of doubt, asserts itself amiss, in making
futile strokes, even as a gardener can never work his best while
conscious of suspicious glances through the window-blinds. Geoffrey
Mordacks told himself that it could not be the self it used to be, in
the days when no mistakes were made, but everything was evident at half
a glance, and carried out successfully with only half a hand. In this
Flamborough matter he had felt no doubt of running triumphantly through,
and being crowned with five hundred pounds in one issue of the case, and
five thousand in the other. But lo! here was nothing. And he must reply,
by the next mail, that he had made a sad mistake.

Suddenly, while he was rubbing his wiry head with irritation, and poring
over his letters for some clew, like a dunce going back through his
pot-hooks, suddenly a great knock sounded through the house--one, two,
three--like the thumping of a mallet on a cask, to learn whether any
beer may still be hoped for.

"This must be a Flamborough man," cried Master Mordacks, jumping up;
"that is how I heard them do it; they knock the doors, instead of
knocking at them. It would be a very strange thing just now if news were
to come from Flamborough; but the stranger a thing is, the more it can
be trusted, as often is the case with human beings. Whoever it is, show
them up at once," he shouted down the narrow stairs; for no small noise
was arising in the passage.

"A' canna coom oop. I wand a' canna," was the answer in Kitty's
well-known brogue; "how can a', when a' hanna got naa legs?"

"Oh ho! I see," said Mr. Mordacks to himself; "my veteran friend from
the watch-tower, doubtless. A man with no legs would not have come so
far for nothing. Show the gentleman into the parlor, Kitty; and Miss
Arabella may bring her work up here."

The general factor, though eager for the news, knew better than to
show any haste about it; so he kept the old marin