Lawrence with them, and you know, Master Henry, there he was between them three stones with his neck broke.” Useless to imagine the talk which this story set going. It is not remembered. But before Patten left them, he said to Fanshawe: “Excuse me, sir, but did I understand as you took out them glasses with you to-day? I thought you did; and might I ask, did you make use of them at all?” “Yes. Only to look at something in a church.” “Oh, indeed, you took ’em into the church, did you, sir?” “Yes, I did; it was Lambsfield church. By the way, I left them strapped on to my bicycle, I’m afraid, in the stable-yard.” “No matter for that, sir. I can bring them in the first thing to-morrow and perhaps you’ll be so good as to look at ’em then.” Accordingly, before breakfast, after a tranquil and well-earned sleep, Fanshawe took the glasses into the garden and directed them to a distant hill. He lowered them instantly, and looked at top and bottom, worked the screws, tried them again and yet again, shrugged his shoulders and replaced them on the hall-table. “Patten,” he said, “they’re absolutely useless. I can’t see a thing: it’s as if someone had stuck a black wafer over the lens.” “Spoilt my glasses, have you?” said the Squire. “Thank you: the only ones I’ve got.” “You try them yourself,” said Fanshawe, “I’ve done nothing to them.” So after breakfast the Squire took them out to the terrace and stood on the steps. After a few ineffectual attempts, “Lord, how heavy they are!” he said impatiently, and in the same instant dropped them on to the stones, and the lens splintered and the barrel cracked: a little pool of liquid formed on the stone slab. It was inky black, and the odour that rose from it is not to be described. “Filled and sealed, eh?” said the Squire. “If I could bring myself to touch it, I dare say we should find the seal. So that’s what came of his boiling and distilling, is it? Old Ghoul!” “What in the world do you mean?” “Don’t you see, my good man? Remember what he said to the doctor about looking through dead men’s eyes? Well, this was another way of it. But they didn’t like having their bones boiled, I take it, and the end of it was they carried him off whither he would not. Well, I’ll get a spade, and we’ll bury this thing decently.” As they smoothed the turf over it, the Squire, handing the spade to Patten, who had been a reverential spectator, remarked to Fanshawe: “It’s almost a pity you took that thing into the church: you might have seen more than you did. Baxter only had them for a week, I make out, but I don’t see that he did much in the time.” “I’m not sure,” said Fanshawe, “there is that picture of Fulnaker Priory Church.” A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS