me household business.

It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the day when I first met
my friend, the Tramp. The hush of a great benediction lay on land and
sea. A few white sails twinkled afar, but sleepily; one or two large
ships were creeping in lazily, like my friend, the Tramp. A voice
behind me startled me.

My host had rejoined me. His face, however, looked a little troubled.

"I just now learned something of importance," he began. "It appears
that with all my precautions that Tramp has visited my kitchen, and the
servants have entertained him. Yesterday morning, it appears, while I
was absent, he had the audacity to borrow my gun to go duck-shooting.
At the end of two or three hours he returned with two ducks and--the
gun."

"That was, at least, honest."

"Yes--but! That fool of a girl says that, as he handed back the gun,
he told her it was all right, and that he had loaded it up again to
save the master trouble."

I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added, hastily: "It was
only duck-shot; a few wouldn't hurt him!"

Nevertheless, we both walked on in silence for a moment. "I thought
the gun kicked a little," he said at last, musingly; "but the idea of--
Hallo! what's this?"

He stopped before the hollow where I had first seen my Tramp. It was
deserted, but on the mosses there were spots of blood and fragments of
an old gown, blood-stained, as if used for bandages. I looked at it
closely: it was the gown intended for the consumptive wife of my
friend, the Tramp.

But my host was already nervously tracking the bloodstains that on
rock, moss, and boulder were steadily leading toward the sea. When I
overtook him at last on the shore, he was standing before a flat rock,
on which lay a bundle I recognized, tied up in a handkerchief, and a
crooked grape-vine stick.

"He may have come here to wash his wounds--salt is a styptic," said my
host, who had recovered his correct precision of statement.

I said nothing, but looked toward the sea. Whatever secret lay hid in
its breast, it kept it fast. Whatever its calm eyes had seen that
summer night, it gave no reflection now. It lay there passive,
imperturbable, and reticent. But my friend, the Tramp, was gone!

THE MAN FROM SOLANO

He came toward me out of an opera lobby, between the acts,--a figure as
remarkable as anything in the performance. His clothes, no two
articles of which were of the same color, had the appear