amusing?  If she had said to me,  "Mr.
Softly, I like tumbling,"  I should have made
a clown of myself on the spot.  I should
have stood on my head (if I could), and been
amply rewarded for the graceful exertion, if
the eyes of Laura Knapton had looked kindly
on my elevated heels!

How long I stayed is more than I can tell.
Lunch came up.  I eat and drank, and
grew more amusing than ever.  When I
at last rose to go, the brown eyes looked
on me very kindly, and the doctor gave me
his card.

"If you don't mind trusting yourself in the
clutches of Doctor Faustus," he said, with a
gay smile, "I shall be delighted to see you, if
you are ever in the neighbourhood of
Barkingham."

I wrung his hand, mentally relinquishing
my secretaryship while I thanked him for the
invitation.  I half put out my hand to his
daughter; and the dear friendly girl met the
advance with the most charming readiness.
She gave me a good, hearty, vigorous,
uncompromising shake.  O, precious right
hand!  never did I properly appreciate your
value until that moment.

Going out with my head in the air, and my
senses in the seventh heaven, I jostled an
elderly gentleman passing before the garden
gate.  I turned round to apologise; it was
my brother in office, the estimable Treasurer
of the Duskydale Institution.

"I have been half over the town looking
after you,"  he said.  "The Managing
Committee, on reflection, consider your plan of
personally soliciting public attendance at the
ball to be compromising the dignity of the
Institution, and beg you, therefore, to
abandon it."

"Very well," said I, "there is no harm
done.  Thus far, I have only solicited two
persons, Doctor and Miss Knapton, in that
delightful little cottage there."

"You don't mean to say you have asked
them to come to the ball!"

"To be sure I have.  And I am sorry to
say they can't accept the invitation.  Why
should they not be asked?"

"Because nobody visits them."

"And why should nobody visit them?"

The Treasurer put his arm confidentially
through mine, and walked me on a few
steps.

"In the first place,"  he said,  "Doctor
Knapton's name is not down in the Medical
List."

"Some mistake,"  I suggested, in my off-
hand way.  "Or some foreign doctor's degree
not recognised by the prejudiced people in
England.''

"In the second place,"  continued the
Treasurer, "we have found out that he is not
visited at Barkingham.  Consequently, it
would be the height of imprudence to visit
him here."

"Pooh! pooh!  All the nonsense of narrow-
minded people, because he lives a retired
life, and is engaged in finding out chemical
secrets which the ignorant public don't
know how to appreciate."

"The shutters are always up in the front
top windows of his house at Barkingham," said
the Treasurer, lowering his voice mysteriously.
"I know that from a friend resident near
him.  The windows themselves are barred.
It is currently reported that the top of the
house, inside, is shut off by iron doors from
the bottom.  Workmen are employed there
who don't belong to the neighbourhood, who
don't drink at the public-houses, who only
associate with each other.  Unfamiliar smells
and noises find their way outside sometimes.
Nobody in the house can be got to talk.  The
doctor, as he calls himself, does not even make
an attempt to get into society, does not even
try to see company for the sake of his poor
unfortunate daughter.  What do you think
of all that?"

"Think!"  I repeated contemptuously.  "I
think the inhabitants of Barkingham are the
best finders of mares'-nests in all England.
The doctor is making important chemical
discoveries (the possible value of which I can
appreciate, being chemical myself), and he is
not quite fool enough to expose valuable
secrets to the view of all the world.  His
laboratory is at the top of the house, and he
wisely shuts it off from the bottom to prevent
accidents.  He is one of the best fellows
I ever met with, and his daughter is the
loveliest girl in the world.  What do you all
mean by making mysteries about nothing?
He has given me an invitation to go and see
him.  I suppose the next thing you will find
out is, that there is something underhand
even in that?"

"You won't accept the invitation?"

"I shall, at the very first opportunity; and
if you had seen Miss Knapton, so would
you."

"Don't go.  Take my advice and don't go,"
said the Treasurer, gravely.  "You are a
young man.  Reputable friends are of
importance to you at the outset of life.  I say
nothing against Doctor Knapton—he came
here as a stranger, and he goes away again
as a stranger—but you can't be sure that
his purpose in asking you so readily to his
house is a harmless one.  Making a new
acquaintance is always a doubtful speculation;
but when a man is not visited by his
respectable neighbours—"

"Because he doesn't open his shutters," I
interposed, sarcastically.

"Because there are doubts about him and
his house, which he will not clear up,"
retorted the Treasurer.  "You can take your
own way.  You may turn out right, and we
may all be wrong; I can only say again, it is
rash to make doubtful acquaintances.  Sooner
or later you are always sure to repent it.  In
your place I should certainly not accept the
invitation."