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“‘Awaiting your Eminence’s counsel to guide me further in the matter,

“‘I am, etc.’

“Well, Zeno,” said my uncle: “what do you think of Father Hickey now?”

“Uncle: do not ask me. Beneath this roof I desire to believe everything. The Reverend Hickey has appealed strongly to my love of legend. Let us admire the poetry of his narrative and ignore the balance of probability between a Christian priest telling a lie on his own oath and a graveyard swimming across a river in the middle of the night and forgetting to return.”

“Tom Hickey is not telling a lie, you may take my word on that. But he may be mistaken.”

“Such a mistake amounts to insanity. It is true that I myself, awakening suddenly in the depth of night have found myself convinced that the position of my bed had been reversed. But on opening my eyes the illusion ceased. I fear Mr. Hickey is mad. Your best course is this. Send down to Four Mile Water a perfectly sane investigator; an acute observer; one whose perceptive faculties, at once healthy and subtle, are absolutely unclouded by religious prejudice. In a word, send me. I will report to you the true state of affairs in a few days; and you can then make arrangements for transferring Hickey from the altar to the asylum.”

“Yes I had intended to send you. You are wonderfully sharp; and you would make a capital detective if you could only keep your mind to one point. But your chief qualifications for this business is that you are too crazy to excite the suspicion of those whom you have to watch. For the affair may be a trick. If so, I hope and believe that Hickey has no hand in it. Still, it is my duty to take every precaution.”

“Cardinal: may I ask whether traces of insanity have ever appeared in our family?”

“Except in you and in my grandmother, no. She was a Pole; and you resemble her personally. Why do you ask?”

“Because it has often occurred to me that you are perhaps a little cracked. Excuse my candor; but a man who has devoted his life to the pursuit of a red hat; who accuses everyone else beside himself of being mad; and is disposed to listen seriously to a tale of a peripatetic graveyard, can hardly be quite sane. Depend upon it, uncle, you want rest and change. The blood of your Polish grandmother is in your veins.”

“I hope I may not be committing a sin in sending a ribald on the church’s affairs,” he replied, fervently. “However, we must use the instruments put into our hands. Is it agreed that you go?”

“Had you not delayed me with the story, which I might as well have learned on the spot, I should have been there already.”

“There is no occasion for impatience, Zeno. I must send to Hickey and find a place for you. I shall tell him you are going to recover your health, as, in fact, you are. And, Zeno, in Heaven’s name be discreet. Try to act like a man of sense. Do not dispute with Hickey on matters of religion. Since you are my nephew, you had better not disgrace me.”

“I shall become an ardent Catholic, and do you infinite credit, uncle.”

“I wish you would, although you would hardly be an acquisition to the Church. And now I must turn you out. It is nearly three o’clock; and I need some sleep. Do you know your way back to your hotel?”

“I need not stir. I can sleep in this chair. Go to bed, and never mind me.”

“I shall not close my eyes until you are safely out of the house. Come, rouse yourself and say good-night.”

* * * * *

The following is a copy of my first report to the Cardinal:–