So it was with a sorely troubled heart and brain that Wexley took up the burden of life again next day. He had a funeral to conduct at ten o'clock, and he began it in such an absent-minded way that he might have made scandalous mistakes, had not the officiating clergyman's text--Jeremiah, xii: 9,--delivered in a high, nasal drawl, brought him to a sudden decision: "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird. The birds round about are against her." "Yes, even Sade!" he thought. And such is the perversity of human nature that it stirred him to espouse the cause of his speckled bird. As he led the slow procession out to the cemetery, something followed him other than the hearse and the long line of carriages;--in that shadowy procession of fancy, black hearse-plumes gave place to the nod, nodding of red-plumed chariot horses. If there was anything Wexley Snathers particularly prided himself upon, it was the effective arrangement of funeral processions, and at the tempting thought of the scope for his genius circus parades would afford, the battle with his conscience was won. All the past called out loudly not to venture on any road where Pole Bennet's feet had left a track, but three days later--hoping that old Mr. Hill would hold on to life until his return--the troubled undertaker locked the door of his little coffin shop and fared forth to claim his heritage. * * * * * It is not often that a dying man leaves his earthly affairs so thoroughly provided for as did Napoleon Bennet, yet that astute showman reckoned without an important element of his problem when he thought to put the armless dwarf in his old playfellow's care. He had not counted on the twist in her little warped brain,--a superstitious dread that amounted almost to mania. She was afraid of undertakers or anything connected with their gruesome business. A cold terror seized her when she learned she was about to fall into the hands of a man on intimate terms with Death and his pale horse and, with the cunning of her kind, she began laying plans that would work his undoing. Wexley first saw her sitting on a table, practising her one accomplishment, writing her autograph with her toes. "Be thankful for your arms. Jane Hutchins," she penned in round, childish script. "Blest if it ain't better than I could do myself with both hands," declared Wexley, admiringly. Then, remembering what Pole had promised about his being good to the tiny creature, he patted her kindly on the head. She drew back with an inarticulate cry of alarm, turning upon him the face of a woman of thirty. A wild look of aversion gleamed in her little beady eyes.