permanent educational value.

"Thus I reflected and mapped out my course of action as I worked at what
I may call the foundation specimen of my collection. The latter kept me
busy for many days, but I was very pleased with the result when it was
finished. The bones were of a good color and texture, the fracture of
the skull, when carefully joined with fish-glue, was quite invisible,
and, as to the little dried preparation of the head, it was entirely
beyond my expectations. Comparing it with the photographs taken after
death, I was delighted to find that the facial characters and even the
expression were almost perfectly retained.

"It was a red-letter day when I put Number One in the great glass case
and took out the skeleton that I had bought from the dealer to occupy
its place until it was ready. The substitute was no longer needed and I
accordingly dismantled it and destroyed it piecemeal in the furnace,
crushing the calcined bones into unrecognizable fragments.

"Meanwhile I had been pushing on my preparations for further captures. A
large, mahogany-faced safe was fixed in the dining-room to contain the
silver; a burglar alarm was fitted under the floor in front of the safe
and connected with a trembler-drum that was kept (with the concussor and
a few other appliances) locked in a hanging cupboard at my bed-head,
ready to be switched on and placed under my pillow at night. I secretly
purchased a quantity of paste jewelry--bracelets, tiaras, pendants and
such like glittering trash--and when everything was ready I engaged two
new servants of decidedly queer antecedents. I was at first a little
doubtful about the cook, but the housemaid was a certainty from the
outset. Her character from her late reverend and philanthropic employer,
urging me as a Christian man (which I was not) to 'give her another