so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have
only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five
years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was
it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was
it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three
centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute
guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college
friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That
being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest?

The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I
could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped
up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away
into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau,
I turned in, and was soon fast asleep.

As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was
awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was
broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact.

"Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited
on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!"

"Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse,
which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he
lies stark and dead!"



II