THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XXV. THE SKELETON IS MCLAUGHLIN'S CLOSET. Night, spotted with stars, like a black leopard, crouched once more upon Bumsteadville, and her one eye to be seen in profile, the moon, glared upon the helpless place with something of a cat's nocturnal stare of glassy vision for a stupefied mouse. Midnight had come with its twelve tinkling drops more of opiate, to deepen the... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XXIV. MR. CLEWS AT HIS NOVEL. Thrown into Rembrandtish relief by the light of a garish kerosene lamp upon the table: with one discouraged lock of hair hanging over his nose, and straw hat pushed so far back from his phrenological brow that its vast rim had the fine artistic effect of a huge saintly nimbus: Mr. BUMSTEAD sat gynmastically crosswise in an easy-chair, over... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XXII.—(Continued.) When Miss POTTS and Mr. SIMPSON rejoined Mr. DIBBLE, in the office of the latter, across the street, it was decided that the flighty young girl should be made less expensive to her friends by temporary accommodation in an economical boarding-house, and that the Gospeler, returning to Bumsteadville, should persuade Miss CAROWTHERS to come and stay... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XXI. BENTHAM TO THE RESCUE. European travellers in this country—especially if one economical condition of their coming hither has not been the composition of works of imagination on America, sufficiently contemptuous to pay all the expenses of the trip—have, occasionally—and particularly if they have been invited to write for New York magazines, take... more...

"HALF a year, half a year, half a year onward," has PUNCHINELLO advanced since he wafted his first number to the four quarters of the globe. His road has not been a very easy one to travel. Bad characters lurked behind the fences, from which they would sometimes take a sneak shot at the Showman as he passed. These fellows were awfully bad shots, though, never so much as hitting the van in which the show travels. PUNCHINELLO'S return fire always... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORFHEUS C. KERR CHAPTER XIX. THE H. AND H. OF J. BUMSTEAD. The exquisitely sweet month of the perfectly delicious summer-vacation having come, Miss CAROWTHERS' Young Ladies have returned again, for a time, to their respective homes, MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON has gone to the city and her brother, and FLORA POTTS is ridiculously and absurdly alone. Under the ardent sun of August, Bumsteadville slowly... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR CHAPTER XVIII A SUBTLE STRANGER. The latest transient guest at the Roach House—a hotel kept on the entomological plan in Bumsteadville—was a gentleman of such lurid aspect as made every beholder burn to know whom he could possibly be. His enormous head of curled red hair not only presented a central parting on top and a very much one-sided parting and puffing-out... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XVII. INSURANCE AND ASSURANCE. Six months had come and gone and done it; the weather was as inordinately hot as it had before been intolerably cold; and the Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON stood waiting, in the gorgeous Office of the Boreal Life Insurance Company, New York, for the appearance of Mr. MELANCTHON SCHENCK. Having been directed by a superb young clerk, who parted... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD: AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XVI. AVUNCULAR DEVOTIO Having literally fallen asleep from his chair to the rug, J. BUMSTEAD, Esquire, was found to have reached such an extraordinary depth in slumber, that Mr. and Mrs. SMYTHE, his landlord and landlady, who were promptly called in by Mr. DIBBLE, had at first some fear that they should never be able to drag him out again. In pursuance, however, of a... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XV. "SPOTTED." When the bell of St. Cow's began ringing for Ritualistic morning-service, with a sound as of some incontinently rambling dun spinster of the lacteal herd—now near at hand in cracked dissonance, as the wind blows hither; now afar, in tinkling distance, as the wind blows hence—MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON was several miles away from Bumsteadville upon... more...