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The Hat the dining-room window. I don't know why it was, or how it was, but a suspicion came over me. I stepped sharply to the door, and looked out into the passage. There was no one there. The front door was open, and the kitchen door was open, and in a position between the two, against the umbrella-stand, was—something worse than ever I had expected.

I picked that hat up just as it was, with the walnuts inside it, and placed it on the dining-room table. Then I called to Eliza to come down-stairs.

"What is it?" she asked, as she entered the dining-room.

I pointed to the hat. "This kind of thing," I said, "has been going on for years!"

"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"

"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a—a receptacle for walnuts!" 68