Whither should they send him? Stolen treasure or murdered body is jealously concealed by the malefactor; but not more shrinkingly than was Mr. Dingwell by those gentlemen who had him in charge. Safe enough he was while he remained in his dingy seclusion in Rosemary Court, where he lay as snugly as Asmodeus in the magician's phial, and secure against all but some such accident as the irruption of the student Don Cleophas Leandro Peres Zambullo, through the skylight. But where was to be found a rural habitation--salubrious and at the same time sufficiently secret. And if they did light upon one resembling that where the water-fiends played their pranks-- "On a wild moor, all brown and bleak, Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse, There stood a tenement antique-- Lord Hoppergollop's country house. "Here silence reigned with lips of glue, And undisturbed, maintained her law, Save when the owl cried--'Whoo! whoo! whoo!' Or the hoarse crow croaked--'Caw! caw! caw!'" If I say they did find so eligible a mansion for their purpose, was it likely that their impracticable and incorrigible friend, Mr. Dingwell, would consent to spend six weeks in the "deserted mansion" as patiently as we are told Molly Dumpling did? I think not. And when the doctor talked of country air, the patient joked peevishly about the "grove of chimneys," and "the sweet shady side of Pall Mall." "I think, Mrs. Rumble," said he, one day, "I'm not going to die this bout at all events. I'm looking better, I think--eh?" "Looking very bad, sir, please. I can't see no improvement," said Sarah Rumble. "Well, ma'am, you try to keep my spirits up, thank you. I'm shut up too much--that's the sole cause of it _now_. If I could creep out a bit at night." "God forbid, sir." "Thank you, ma'am, again. I say if I could get out a little I should soon get my strength back again; but sitting in this great padded chair I might as well be in bed; can't go out in the daytime you know--too many enemies. The owl's been moulting, ma'am--devilish sick--the moulting owl. If the old bird could flutter out a bit. I'm living like a _monk_, I was going to say--egad, I wish I was. Give me those d---- bitters; they haven't done me a bit of good--thanks." "If you was to go to the country, sir," insinuated Miss Sarah Rumble.