d upon with due journalistic skill, it brought no anxious troop
of friends and relatives to inquire at Doctor Brudenell's door; and the
best efforts of the inspector and his subordinates to track the
would-be murderer came to ignominious grief, for the only person who
could perchance have put them upon his track lay tossing in the
delirium of fever.

CHAPTER III.

"Hang the brats!" exclaimed Dr. Brudenell, angrily. "If this goes on
for long they'll drive me mad, I swear!"

He was annoyed, chafed, irritated, more out of temper than he had ever
been before. The preceding week had been to him a period of purgatory;
the calm of his house was broken; his study was no longer a sanctuary;
the maids were flurried; Mrs. Jessop spoiled the soup. The bachelor,
transformed suddenly into a family-man without any preliminary steps,
was amazed and bewildered; the sufferings of his married acquaintances
filled him with a grotesque feeling of pity, with the sincerest
sympathy. He especially commiserated Laura's husband--for the three
children had turned out to be three emphatic editions of Laura--with
additions.

Just now the uproar which had caused the master of the house to spring
up from his dinner was more than usually vociferous. The three had
escaped from their extemporized nursery, and had shouted and tumbled
tumultuously down the staircase and into the hall. The street door
happened to be open, and the consequences were disastrous. One rushed
down the steps with a scream of triumph, which changed into a shrill
shriek of anger as he was pursued, captured, and brought back by
Patrick, in spite of violent kicking and struggling; another, backing
unconsciously toward the kitchen staircase, overbalanced, and,
descending with a succession of startling bumps, fell into a tray of
glasses with a terrific crash; while the third and youngest, not
precisely comprehending what was the matter, but being of a highly
sympathetic temperament, threw herself upon the devoted Patrick,
screaming, kicking, and scratching furiously; which, added to the
shouts of the youth whom Patrick carried upside down, and the wails of
the unfortunate whom Mrs. Jessop had just rescued from the _debris_ of
the glasses, swelled the uproar into a chorus that was almost deafening.

The Doctor sat down again, and took up his knife and fork with an
energy which sent the gravy flying over the snowy cloth.

"Confound the little wretches! I'll advertise to-mo