."

"Then if it's not my uncle, what is it?"

"I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit had got your
uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it. Now it's got into
that little body and is off on its own."

"Well, what are we to do?"

"We'll keep our eyes open," said Saunders, "and try to catch it. If we
can't do that, we shall have to wait till the bally clockwork runs
down. After all, if it's flesh and blood, it can't live for ever."

For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding down the
banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost a full second
before he started in pursuit, only to find that the thing had escaped
him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night,
saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers
crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before
he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was
pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on
to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him
in an expression of scornful derision.

"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set
the dogs on to it."

He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.

"It's jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we find it out
of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the
under-keeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats like a flash. Your
spaniel has not got spirit enough for this sort of game." They brought
the dogs into the house, and the keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the
slippers, and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but
all three were welcome. Even false security is better than no security
at all.

For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the
dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of
periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in
place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When
once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would
often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of
captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts
and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and
singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.

"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eusta