missing ever since he went out with you at midnight: also an alpaca
umbrella."

"Upon my honor, I know nothing of either," ejaculated the unhappy
Southerner.

Mr. BUMSTEAD, still holding him by the neck-tie, cast a fiery and
unsettled glance around at nothing in particular; then ground his teeth
audibly, and scowled.

"My boy's missing!" he said, hissingly.--"Y'understand?--he's
missing.--I must insist upon searching the prisoner."

In the presence of Gospeler and constables, and loftily regardless alike
of their startled wonder and the young man's protests, the maddened
uncle of the lost DROOD deliberately examined all the captive's pockets
in succession. In one of them was a penknife, which, after thoughtfully
trying it upon his pink nails, he abstractedly placed in his own pocket.
Searching next the overwhelmed Southerner's travelling-satchel, he found
in it an apple, which he first eyed with marked suspicion, and then bit
largely into, as though half expecting to find in it some traces of his
nephew.

"I'll keep this suspicious fruit," he remarked, with a hollow laugh;
and, bearing unreservedly upon the nearer arm of the hapless MONTGOMERY,
and eating audibly as he surged onward, he started on the return march
for Bumsteadville.

Not a word more was spoken until, after a cool Christmas stroll of about
eight and a quarter miles, the whole party stood before Judge SWEENEY in