We settled down into an awkward silence, while Nathan fidgetted with soda-water bottles, Barton fingering his cigar, I toying with a paper-weight, and Willoughby intent upon the fire. "Carhart," he kept repeating, almost to himself. "Where have I heard that name before? Carhart!" "Carhart?" said Barton inquiringly. "Carhart!" repeated Willoughby, with still more abstraction. "Carhart!" "Yes, Carhart!" I put in, by way of keeping up the train of thought. "Carhart!" roared Barton, springing to his feet. "Can't anybody say anything but Carhart?" "And what became of the widow?" Willoughby demanded meditatively. "I never knew nor cared to know," replied our host. "Pretty, I think you said," continued Willoughby. "And auburn-haired?" "Yes, deuced pretty, deuced auburn-haired. What are you driving at?" Willoughby held up a soothing hand. "Just let me think," he said. "I used to know a man once in Calcutta. An American from Boston; sold canned goods, calico and caramels at wholesale; had a pretty wife. Clever fellow, too; and great at giving imitations--could mimic anything. Used to do an old domestic with a lisp in a way that would make your sides ache. I wish I could recall that fellow's name. By Jove, it was--it was!--it was!----" "Was what?" I asked. "Why, 'Carhart'!" Barton, before the fire, swayed on his feet unsteadily, and clutched the mantelpiece for support. Old Nathan shuffled to his side. "Thoda, thir?" the servant asked. "Yes," said the master absently. "If you please, one lump of sugar and a little cream." THE MONSTROSITY Fifteen minutes after Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Livermore, accompanied by their daughter Selma, had driven away from their comfortable West Side residence, for the purpose of attending an annual family gathering at the house of Mrs. Livermore's widowed mother, Mrs. Pease, on the opposite side of Central Park, the Livermore domestics were stirred by a more than usually imperative ring at the front door-bell. It was Christmas Eve, a season when mercantile delivery wagons may appear at any hour. Presents had been arriving all the afternoon, and the sight of a large van backed up against the curbstone occasioned no surprise. "What are they bringing us now?" inquired Bates, the butler, who rarely condescended to open the door in the absence of the family, from his pantry. "It looks to me something like a sofa," replied the smiling housemaid, who generally knew by instinct when the ringer was to be young and good-looking, "and the delivery gentlemen want to know where to put it."