ave
you met with an accident, Mr. Bawdrey? That's an ugly place you have on
your palm."

"That? Oh, that's nothing," he answered, gaily. "It itches a great deal
at times, but otherwise it isn't troublesome. I can't think how in the
world I got it, to tell the truth. It came out as a sort of red blister
in the beginning, and since it broke it has been spreading a great deal.
But, really, it doesn't amount to anything at all."

"Oh, that's just like you, dad," put in Philip, "always making light of
the wretched thing. I notice one thing, however, Rickaby, it seems to
grow worse instead of better. And dad knows as well as I do when it
began. It came out suddenly about a fortnight ago, after he had been
holding some green worsted for my stepmother to wind into balls. Just
look at it, will you, old chap?"

"Nonsense, nonsense!" chimed in the old man, laughingly. "Don't mind the
silly boy, Mr. Rickaby. He will have it that that green worsted is to
blame, just because he happened to spy the thing the morning after."

"Let's have a look at it," said Cleek, moving nearer the light. Then,
after a close examination, "I don't think it amounts to anything, after
all," he added, as he laid aside the glass. "I shouldn't worry myself
about it if I were you, Phil. It's just an ordinary blister, nothing
more. Let's go on with the collection, Mr. Bawdrey; I'm deeply
interested in it, I assure you. Never saw such a marvellous lot. Got any
more amazing things--gems, I mean--like that wonderful scarab? I
say!"--halting suddenly before a long, narrow case, with a glass front,
which stood on end in a far corner, and, being lined with black velvet,
brought into ghastly prominence the suspended shape of a human skeleton
contained within--"I say! What the dickens is this? Looks like a
doctor's specimen, b'gad. You haven't let anybody--I mean, you haven't
been buying any prehistoric bones, have you, Mr. Bawdrey?"

"Oh, that?" laughed the old man, turning round and seeing to what he
was alluding. "Oh, that's a curiosity of quite a different sort, Mr.
Rickaby. You are right in saying it looks like a doctor's specimen. It
is--or, rather, it was. Mrs. Bawdrey's father was a doctor, and it once
belonged to him. Properly, it ought to have no place in a collection of
this sort, but--well, it's such an amazing thing I couldn't quite refuse
it a place, sir. It's a freak of nature. The skeleton of a nine-fingered
man."

"Of a what?"

"A nine-finger