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Tom got out of bed—on the other side, of course—and he wasn't long about it. He didn't at all like the look of the thing. Nor did the expression of his features denote the existence of unmingled joy. He felt queer. He couldn't understand it. There it stood in a menacing position, with a white pocket handkerchief tied round its shin.

"Dodsedce!" cried Tom, at length. "Pooh! I wod't have it! I say, old fellow, what gabe do you call this?"

The skeleton was, as usual, silent, and Tom went round to inspect it more closely. "I'd sbash you, old fellow," said he, indignantly, "if I thought you had adythidg like life id you!" And, having given utterance to this remarkable expression, he went as he was into Sylvester's room.

"Adother gabe, Syl," said he. "Cobe add look here."

"What now?" exclaimed Sylvester.

"Just cobe add look.—There!" he added, as Sylvester entered his room. "There you are!—what do you thidk of that?"

"Good gracious!" cried Sylvester. "What, was it there when you awoke?"

"Exactly id that positiod. I haved't touched it."

"Well, this is strange!"

"Do you see its leg tied up, as if it were idjured whed caught id the trap?"

"Really, this surpasses all!"

"Dow, we wod't tell the wobed about this," said Tom; "if we do, I'b safe to be victibized agaid; but the goverdor shall see it, add thed we shall hear what he thidks of the batter."

Again and again Sylvester expressed his surprise, and feeling in reality all that he expressed—for he hadn't the most remote idea of the manner in which the skeleton had been removed—he returned to his own room to dress.

During breakfast, not a syllable on the subject was uttered; but afterwards, Tom took the doctor up stairs and showed him the thing as it stood.

"And do you mean to say, Tom, you know nothing of it?" said the doctor, who began to suspect Tom himself.

"All I kdow of it," replied Tom, "is this: that there add thus it stood whed I awoke."

"But were you not disturbed at all during the night?"

"Dot at all. Add I defy ady bad alive to cobe idto by roob while I'b asleep without wakidg be up."

"Whose handkerchief is that round the leg? That, perhaps, may give us some clue."

Tom took off the handkerchief; and, having examined it, found that it was his own.

"Ah!" said the doctor, suspiciously. "Well, all I can say, Tom, is, that it's strange. We may, perhaps, find it all out by and bye."

He then left the room; and, as Tom perceived clearly that he was again suspected, he struck the intruding skeleton in the mouth, and knocked its head off.

As the doctor was thoughtfully going down stairs, Aunt Eleanor's