matter, but now I was quite eager to know how Simpson had happened upon this quaint yet comfortable place.

"You are sure you wish me to tell you, sir?" and Simpson looked at me almost beseechingly.

"I insist on it," I replied.

"Well, sir, I am afraid it was built by a kind of madman who came down to St. Issey about six years ago. Who he was I don't know. No one seems to know. But he took a lease of this piece of ground from the Squire and built the house with his own hands."

"He must have been a carpenter," I suggested. "It seems very well built. But what has become of him?"

"He is dead, sir."

"Was he old or young?"

"Quite an old man, I think, sir. Anyhow, he built it himself and would have no one near him. After it was built he lived here alone for several years, speaking to no one but the village idiot, who went by the name of Fever Lurgy, who bought all his food and did all his errands. No woman was allowed near the place, sir."

"Then he cooked his own food and did his own house-work?" I asked.

"It would appear so, sir. He seems to have made himself very comfortable, too. As you see, the furniture is not at all bad, and nearly everything is just as he left it."

I must confess to being interested. The thought of a man coming to this place and building a house for himself and living there without companionship of any sort appealed to me. I wondered how he spent his days and nights.

"Let me have a look around the place," I said, rising from the chair. "I want to see what rooms it contains."

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," was Simpson's reply.

The room in which I had been sitting was about fifteen feet square—it might be a little more—and looked out upon the veranda, beyond which stretched the great Atlantic. It was comfortably furnished, and possessed an old-fashioned fireplace, evidently intended for logs of wood, and revealed the fact that the builder was not only ingenious in the matter of house-building, but that he possessed a good deal of taste. The whole apartment was carefully match-boarded, and was, as I said, snug and comfortable.

"This, sir, is the bedroom," said Simpson, 

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