fourteen days of pastoral simplicity, during which I
had got very sick of Tom Brisket, and Tom's wife, and Tom's cows, and
Tom's children--especially his children--which palled upon one badly and
became unbearable, and beastly personal. The country soon tells upon me,
and I am not fond of children--yet a while--because--but this is mere
babbling of green fields and babies. In describing my return to Golden
Birch Villa that evening, I still feel a confusion in the brain which
whirls and whirls gently round with me. It was the greatest surprise of
my life, the first chapter in a series of surprises, the reader will say
presently. I shall leave the story in his hands, and a remarkable story
it is, take it altogether. It illustrates clearly the old axiom, that
one never knows what is for the best, and that to be robbed--"cleaned
out"--and one's premises generally done for, should turn out to be a
blessing in disguise, will not be very clearly apparent to the reader
until I have explained the whole affair and he has heard my story to the
end.

[Illustration: "TOM'S CHILDREN."]

At the precise moment of which I write now--8.15--I felt as if utter
ruin had overtaken me, as if there were no getting over this gigantic
trouble--this shock, as it were, of a moral earthquake. The usual kind
of earthquake would have been very much the same kind of article, things
a little more askew, perhaps, but not half so "messy." I staggered into
an easy chair--after lighting one of my gas-burners--and took a survey
of the situation, with my mouth open, my chin on my chest, my knees
knocking gently together, and my hair slowly rising upon my head. All
the doors had been locked before the departure of Mrs. Kibbey--my
housekeeper--and myself on our separate ways of recreation, and all the
doors were now wrenched open, and the locks hanging, as it were, by bits
of skin! Everything in the room of any real value had vanished like a
beautiful dream, and everything "of no value to anyone but the owner"
had been tilted into the middle of the room for the convenience of a
hasty analysis before departure. The contents of two desks, of my
carved oak sideboard ("late the property of a gentleman"), of my
bookcase (to make sure that nothing had been stowed away behind the
books), of all the drawers in all the tables, were in one large heap
upon the carpet; bills, letters, tablecloths, tablecovers, dinner
knives, decanters, chimney ornaments, books, purses, l