Rousing himself to something like temporary consciousness, Mr. BUMSTEAD slowly climbed to his feet, and, with a wild kind of swoop, came heavily down with both hands upon the shoulders of his questioner. "What now?" asked that startled personage. "You want t' know 'bout th' umbrella?" said BUMSTEAD, with straw hat amazingly awry, and linen coat a perfect map of creases. "Yes!--You're crushing me!" panted Mr. CLEWS. "Th' umbrella!" cried Mr. BUMSTEAD, suddenly withdrawing his hands and swaying before his visitor like a linen person on springs--"This's what there's 'bout 't: _Where th' umbrella is, there is Edwin also!_" Astounded by, this bewildering confession, and fearful that the uncle of Mr. DROOD would be back in his chair and asleep again if he gave him a chance, the excited inquisitor sprang from his chair, and slowly and carefully backed the wildly glaring object of his solicitation until his shoulders and elbows were safely braced against the mantel-piece. Then, like one inspired, he grasped a bottle of soda water from the table, and forced the reviving liquid down his staring patient's throat; as quickly tore off his straw hat, newly moistened the damp sponge in it at a neighboring washstand, and replaced both on the aching head; and, finally, placed in one of his tremulous hands a few cloves from a saucer on the mantel-shelf. "You are better now? You can tell me more?" he said, resting a moment from his violent exertions. With the unsettled air of one coming out of a complicated dream, Mr. BUMSTEAD chewed the cloves musingly; then, after nodding excessively, with a hideous smile upon his countenance, suddenly threw an arm about the neck of his restorer and wept loudly upon his bosom. "My fr'en'," he wailed, in a damp voice, "lemme confess to you. I'm a mis'able man, my fr'en'; perfectly mis'able. These cloves--these insidious tropical spices--have been thebaneofmyexistence. On Chrishm's night--_that_ Chrishm's night--I toogtoomany. Wha'scons'q'nce? I put m' nephew an' m' umbrella away somewhere, an 've neverb'n able terremembersince!" Still sustaining his weight, the author of "The Amateur Detective" at first seemed nonplussed; but quickly changed his expression to one of abrupt intelligence. "I see, now; I begin to see," he answered, slowly, and almost in a whisper. "On the night of that Christmas dinner here, you were in a clove-trance, and made some secret disposition, (which you have not since been able to remember,) of your umbrella--and nephew. Until very lately--until now, when you are nearly, but _not quite_, as much under the influence of cloves again--you have had a vague general idea that somebody else must have killed Mr. DROOD and stolen your umbrella. But now, that you are partially in the same condition, physiologically and psychologically, as on the night of the disappearance, you have once more a partial perception of what were the facts of the case. Am I right?"