“No, they certainly didn’t do that. It was dark, of course, but not so dark as to prevent my seeing generally what they were doing.” “And when you first looked out of the window after the smash, you called out, but got no answer, although the man you suppose to have thrown these things must have been there at the time, and alone?” “That was so.” Hewitt stood for half a minute in thought, and then said, “There’s something in this; what, I can’t guess at the moment, but something deep, I fancy. Are you sure you won’t come out now?” On this my mind was made up. That dreadful volume had vanquished me altogether three times already, and if I let it go again it would haunt me like a nightmare. There was indeed very little left to read, and I determined to master that and draft my review before I slept. So I told Hewitt that I _was_ sure, and that I should stick to my work. “Very well,” he said; “then perhaps you will lend me these articles?” holding up the paper and the stone as he spoke. “Delighted to lend ’em, I’m sure,” I said. “If you get no more melody out of the clinker than I did out of the paper, you won’t have a musical evening. Good-night!” Hewitt went away with the puzzle in his hand, and I turned once more to my social economy, and, thanks to the gentleman who smashed my window, conquered. I am sure I should have dropped fast asleep had it not been for that. II At this time my only regular daily work was on an evening paper, so that I left home at a quarter to eight on the morning following the adventure of my broken window, in order, as usual, to be at the office at eight; consequently it was not until lunchtime, when my work was over, that I had an opportunity of seeing Hewitt. I went to my own rooms first, however, and on the landing by my door I found the housekeeper in conversation with a shortish, sun-browned man with a goatee beard, whose accent at once convinced me that he hailed from across the Atlantic. He had called, it appeared, three or four times during the morning to see me, getting more impatient each time. As he did not seem even to know my name, the housekeeper had not considered it expedient to say when I was expected, nor indeed to give him any information about me, and he was growing irascible under the treatment. When I at last appeared, however, he left her and approached me eagerly. “See here, sir,” he said, “I’ve been stumpin’ these here durn stairs o’ yours half through the mornin’. I’m anxious to _a_pologise, I reckon, and fix up some damage.” He had followed me into my sitting-room, and was now standing with his back to the fireplace, a dripping umbrella in one hand, and the forefinger of the other held up shoulder-high and pointing, in the manner of a pistol, to my window, which, by the way, had been mended during the morning, in accordance with my instructions to the housekeeper. “Sir,” he continued, “last night I took the extreme liberty of smashin’ your winder.”