of the upper half of his body, pitched forward, with his forehead
crashing upon the table. Instantly recovering himself, and starting to
rub his head, he as suddenly checked that palliative process by a wild
run to his feet and a hideous bellow.

"_I r'memb'r, now!_" he ejaculated, walking excitedly at a series of
obtuse angles all over the apartment.

"Got-'t-knockedinto-m'-head-'t-last. Pauper bur'l ground--J.
M'GLAUGHLIN. Down'n cellar--cool placefa' man's tight--lef' m' umbrella
there by m'stake--go'n' get't thishmin't--"

Managing, after several inaccurate aims at the doorway, to plunge into
the adjacent bedroom, he presently reappeared from thence, veering
hard-aport, with a lighted lantern in his right hand. Then, circuitously
approaching the neglected dining-table, he grasped with his disengaged
digits at the antique black bottle, missed it, went all the way around
the board before he could stop himself, clutched and missed again, went
clear around once more, and finally effected the capture. "Th 'peared t'
be two," he muttered, placing the prize in one of his pockets; and, with
a triumphant stride, made for the half-open hall-door through which the
eyes had been watching him.

The owner of those eyes, and of a surprising head of florid hair, had
barely time to draw back into the shadow of the corridor and notice an
approaching face like that of one walking in his sleep, when the
clove-eater swung disjointedly by him, with jingling lantern, and went
fiercely bumping down the stairway. Closely, without sound, followed the
watcher, and the two, like man and shadow, went out from the house into
the quarry of the moon-eyed black leopard.

Fully bound now in the sinister spell of the spice of the Molucca
islands, Mr. BUMSTEAD had regained that condition of his duplex
existence to which belonged the disposition he had made of his lethargic
nephew and alpaca umbrella on that confused Christmas night; and with
such realization of a distinct duality came back to him at least a
partial recollection of where he had put the cherished two. Finding Mr.
E. DROOD rather overcome by the more festive features of the
meal,--notwithstanding his walk at midnight with Mr. PENDRAGON,--he had
allowed his avuncular displeasure thereat to betray itself in a
threshing administered with the umbrella. Observing that the young man
still slept beside the chair from which he fell, he had ultimately, and
with the umbrella still under his