acquire it, with practice. My quality travels ahead of me in the most

mysterious way. I write my family name without additions, on the

obscure and unknown wanderer, but the clerk promptly calls out, 'Front!

show his lordship to four-eighty-two!' and before I can get to the lift

there is a reporter trying to interview me as they call it. This sort of

thing shall cease at once. I will hunt up the American Claimant the

first thing in the morning, accomplish my mission, then change my lodging

and vanish from scrutiny under a fictitious name."

He left his diary on the table, where it would be handy in case any new

"impressions" should wake him up in the night, then he went to bed and

presently fell asleep. An hour or two passed, and then he came slowly to

consciousness with a confusion of mysterious and augmenting sounds

hammering at the gates of his brain for admission; the next moment he was

sharply awake, and those sounds burst with the rush and roar and boom of

an undammed freshet into his ears. Banging and slamming of shutters;

smashing of windows and the ringing clash of falling glass; clatter of

flying feet along the halls; shrieks, supplications, dumb moanings of

despair, within, hoarse shouts of command outside; cracklings and

mappings, and the windy roar of victorious flames!

Bang, bang, bang! on the door, and a cry:

Turn out--the house is on fire!"

The American Claimant