ntly.

"This," said the skipper, choking; "this is what--you've been worried
about---- This is the secret what's--"

He broke off suddenly as his wife thrust him by main force into a chair,
and standing over him with a fiery face dared him to say another word.
Then she turned to the boy.

"What do you mean by calling me 'mother'?" she demanded. "I'm not your
mother."

"Yes, you are," said Master Jones.

Mrs. Hunt eyed him in bewilderment, and then, roused to a sense of her
position by a renewed gurgling from the skipper's chair, set to work
to try and thump that misguided man into a more serious frame of mind.
Failing in this, she sat down, and, after a futile struggle, began
to laugh herself, and that so heartily that Master Jones, smiling
sympathetically, closed the door and came boldly into the room.

The statement, generally believed, that Captain Hunt and his wife
adopted him, is incorrect, the skipper accounting for his continued
presence in the house by the simple explanation that he had adopted
them. An explanation which Mr. Samuel Brown, for one, finds quite easy
of acceptance.

JERRY BUNDLER

It wanted a few nights to Christmas, a festival for which the small
market town of Torchcster was making extensive preparations. The narrow
streets which had been thronged with people were now almost deserted;
the cheap-jack from London, with the remnant of breath left him after
his evening's exertions, was making feeble attempts to blow out his
naphtha lamp, and the last shops open were rapidly closing for the night.

In the comfortable coffee-room of the old Boar's Head, half a dozen
guests, principally commercial travellers, sat talking by the light of
the fire. The talk had drifted from trade to politics, from politics
to religion, and so by easy stages to the supernatural. Three ghost
stories, never known to fail before, had fallen flat; there was too much
noise outside, too much light within. The fourth story was told by an
old hand with more success; the streets were quiet, and he had turned
the gas out. In the flickering light of the fire, as it shone on the
glasses and danced with shadows on the walls, the story proved so
enthralling that George, the waiter, whose presence had been forgotten,
created a very disagreeable sensation by suddenly starting up from a
dark corner and gliding silently from the room. "That's what I call a
good story," said one of the men, sipping his hot whisky. "Of course