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106 form, it takes another, and probably a worse one. And let me tell you this. My Uncle Benjamin was a curiosity while he lived—my mother used to say that there never was such a devil’s limb as he was, and she was his only sister, and disposed to look upon his eccentricities—and they were eccentricities—with a lenient eye; and it’s my belief that he was quite as big a curiosity when he died. There were spots in his eventful life—uncommonly queer ones—which he would not wish revealed to the public eye. Unless I’m wrong, some of them are inside there; we’re almost standing in their presence now, and I wish that we were quite.”

She rattled the poker against the panels as a kind of parting salute. I had rather she had not. Every time she made a noise—and she kept on making one—it set my nerves all tingling. What with the things she said, and the way that she went on, and everything altogether, I was getting into such a state that I was beginning to hardly know whether I was standing on my head or heels. As for Pollie, she seemed in the highest possible spirits. It was incomprehensible to me how she dared. And the way she kept on talking!

“Before I’m very much older I will get the other side of you, or I’ll know the reason why; the idea of not being allowed the free run of my own premises is a trifle more than I can stand. If I have to blow you down, I’ll get you open.”

Bang, bang, she went at it again.

“It sounds hollow, doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s meant by way of a suggestion, and is intended to let us understand that it’s only a hollow mystery after all. Well, we shall see—and you shall see too, if you have curiosity enough.”

I doubted if I had. I certainly had not just then. I wished, with all my heart, that she would come away from the horrid door, which presently she