the edge of the mantelpiece.

"Naturally," he went on, "I considered this story, to be a mere piece of
religious pretension. It amused me to make some experiments, and to
my surprise the castings were always defective. I brought the image to
England."

He shrugged his shoulders as with a careless gesture.

"In my idle time here I tried it again. And incredibly the result was
always the same; some portion of the figure showed a flaw. My interest
in the thing was permanently aroused. I continued to experiment."

He laughed in a queer high cackle.

"And presently I found myself desperately astride a hobby. I got all the
Babbitt metal that I could buy up in England and put in the days and
not a few of the nights in trying to cast a perfect figure of this
confounded Buddha. But I have never been able to do it."

He opened a drawer of the gun-case and brought over to the fire half a
dozen castings of the Buddha in various sizes.

Not one among the number was perfect. Some portion of the figure was in
every case wanting. A hand would be missing, a portion of a shoulder, a
bit of the squat body or there would be a flaw where the running metal
had not filled the mold.

"I'm hanged," he cried, "if the beggars are not right about it. The
thing can't be done! I've tried it in all sorts of dimensions. You will
see some of the big figures in the garden. I've used a ton of metal and
every sort of mold."

Then he flung his hand out toward the bookcase.

"I've studied the art of molding in soft metal. I have all the books
on it, and I've turned the boathouse into a sort of shop. I've spent a
hundred pounds--and I can't do it!"

He paused, his big face relaxed.

"The country thinks I'm mad, working with such outlandish deviltry. But,
curse the thing, I have set out to do it and I am not going to throw it
up."

And suddenly with an unexpected heat he damned the Buddha, shaking his
clenched hand before the box.

"Your pardon, Robin," he cried, the moment after. "But the thing's
ridiculous, you know. The ritual story would be sheer rubbish. The
beggars could not affect a metal casting with a form of words."

I have tried to set down here precisely what my uncle said. It was
the last talk I ever had with the man in this world, and it profoundly
impressed me. He was in fear, and his jovial manner was a ghastly
pretence. I left him sitting by the fire drinking neat whisky from a
tumbler.

The old man-servant took me up to