same severe melancholy that had been the redemption of his else worldly
countenance.

And about the ruins industrious research discovered the metal rings and
charred coverings of two linen buttons, three shanked buttons entire,
and one of that metallic sort which is used in the less conspicuous
sutures of the human Oeconomy. These remains have been accepted by
persons in authority as conclusive of a destroyed and scattered Skinner,
but for my own entire conviction, and in view of his distinctive
idiosyncrasy, I must confess I should prefer fewer buttons and more
bones.

The glass eye of course has an air of extreme conviction, but if it
really _is_ Skinner's--and even Mrs. Skinner did not certainly know if
that immobile eye of his was glass--something has changed it from a
liquid brown to a serene and confident blue. That shoulder-blade is an
extremely doubtful document, and I would like to put it side by side
with the gnawed scapulae of a few of the commoner domestic animals
before I admitted its humanity.

And where were Skinner's boots, for example? Perverted and strange as a
rat's appetite must be, is it conceivable that the same creatures that
could leave a lamb only half eaten, would finish up Skinner--hair,
bones, teeth, and boots?

I have closely questioned as many as I could of those who knew Skinner
at all intimately, and they one and all agree that they cannot imagine
_anything_ eating him. He was the sort of man, as a retired seafaring
person living in one of Mr. W.W. Jacobs' cottages at Dunton Green told
me, with a guarded significance of manner not uncommon in those parts,