as soon as I did. That was where Uvo Delavoye did come in,
and with him his mother's new cook, Sarah, in the bonnet with the
nodding plume--just as she had been to see her pore old master.

"It's a beautiful mad-'ouse," said Sarah, with a moist twinkle in her
funny old eye. "I only 'ope he won't want to burn it down!"

"_I_ only hope you're keeping his effort to yourselves," said I. "It'll
do the Estate no good, if it gets out, after all the other things that
have been happening here."

"Trust us and the doctors!" said Uvo. "We're all in the same boat,
Gilly, and your old Muskett's the only other soul who knows. By the
way"--his glance had deepened--"both they and Sarah think it must have
been coming on for a long time."

"I'm quite sure it 'as," said Sarah, earnestly. "I never did 'ear such
things as Mr. Nettleton used to say to me, or to hisself, it didn't seem
to matter who it was. But of course it wasn't for me to go about
repeating them."

I saw Uvo's mouth twitching, for some reason, and I changed the subject
to the miraculous preservation of the house in Witching Hill Road. The
doctors had assured me that the very floor, which my own eyes had beheld
a sea of blazing spirit, was scarcely so much as charred. And Uvo
Delavoye confirmed the statement.

"It wasn't such a deep sea as you thought, Gilly. But it was the spirit
that saved the show, and that's just where our poor friend overshot the
mark. Spirit burns itself, not the thing you put it on. It's like the
brandy and the Christmas pudding. Those shavings would have been far
more dangerous by themselves, but drenched in methylated spirit they
burnt like a wick, which of course hardly burns at all."

"_My_ methylated!" Sarah chimed in. "He must have found it when he was
looking for me all over my kitchens, pore gentleman, and me at my
brother's all the time! I'd just took a gallon from Draytons' Stores,
because you get it ever so much cheaper by the gallon, Mr. Hugo. I must
remember to tell your ma."

CHAPTER VIII

The Temple of Bacchus

That spring I did what a great many young fellows were doing in those
particular days. I threw up my work at short notice, and went very far
afield from Witching Hill. It was a long year before I came back,
unscathed as to my skin, but with its contents ignobly depreciated and
reduced, on a visit to 7, Mulcaster Park.

Uvo Delavoye met me at the station, and we fled before the leisurely
tide of top-hats and