disrespect, "thinks she's a fit and proper writer to cope with that immortal skunk! False Sextus in a parish magazine! Proud Tarquin done really proud at last!"
It was on the tip of my tongue to make it quite clear to Uvo that Miss Julia had not wittingly proposed to write about his ancestor at all; that apparently she had never heard of his existence before that evening, and that it was her own original idea to make Witching Hill House the haunt of some purely imaginary scoundrel. But I knew my Uvo well enough by this time to hold my tongue, and at least postpone the tiresome discussion of a rather stale point on which we were never likely to agree.
But I stayed to supper at No. 7; and Uvo kept me till the small hours, listening to further details of his last researches, and to the farrago of acute conjecture, gay reminiscence and vivid hearsay which his reading invariably inspired. It was base subject-metal that did not gain a certain bright refinement in his fiery mind, or fall from his lips with a lively ring; and that night he was at his best about things which have an opposite effect on many young men. It must have been after one when I left him. I saw the light go out behind the cheap stained glass in the front door, and I heard Uvo going upstairs as I departed. The next and only other light I passed, in the houses on that side of the road, was at the top of the one which was now the Vicarage. Thence also came an only sound; it was the continuous crackle of a typewriter, through the open window of the room which I knew Miss Julia had appropriated as her own.
That end of the Estate had by this time a full team of tenants, whereas I had two sets of painters and paperhangers to keep up to the mark in Witching Hill Road. This rather came between me and my friends in Mulcaster Park, especially as my Mr. Muskett lived in their road, and his house had eyes and a tongue. So it happened that I saw no more of Miss Julia Brabazon until she paid me a queer little visit at my office one afternoon about five o'clock. She was out of breath, and her flurried manner quickened my ear to the sound of her brother's bells ringing in the distance for week-day evensong.
"I thought I'd like to have one word with you, Mr. Gillon, about my story," she panted, with a guilty shrinking from the sheet of glass behind her. "It will be finished in a few days now, I'm thankful to say. I've been so hard at work upon it, you can't think!"
"Oh, yes, I can," said I; for there seemed to be many more lines on the simple, eager countenance; the drollery had gone out of it, and its heightened color had an unhealthy, bluish tinge.
"I'm afraid I have been burning the midnight oil a little," she admitted with a sort of coy bravado. "But there seems so much to do during the day, and 

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