118 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND, — [itt

 

terials were cheaper and more plentiful with them
than with us; at any rate, such was the case, and the
result was, that Simon found himself the owner of a
piece of furniture which would last the length of his
own life and a good many more lives if it had decent
and proper treatment. He opened it with becoming
care, looked into every drawer and pigeon-hole, tapped
it in various places where he suspected the possible
existence of a secret recess, and felt more and more
satisfied with his wisdom in having made so good a
purchase.

‘Five pounds!’ he exclaimed to himself at the
conclusion of his investigation: ‘Five pounds! why,
the thing would have been cheap at double the money!
Sour my cream if I haven’t done well in buying it,
that I have!’

‘That you have !’. said a voice as Simon concluded
his sentence, and it so startled him that he jumped
back a yard and a half immediately in the greatest
astonishment.

Who had spoken, and from whom did the voice
proceed? He looked in front of him; he looked
behind ; he gazed up at the ceiling and then down
upon the floor ; he turned first to the right hand and
then to the left, but there was nothing whatever to be
seen. Yet most assuredly some one had spoken. It
could not be fancy, for he was not a fanciful man ; he
could scarcely attribute the sound to the echo, for
there was not, and never had been, any echo in that
room since it had first been built—could he have been
dreaming, and had he not really heard his own words
repeated ? Simon stood for several moments wrapt in