CHAPTER XXIV.
AN UNFINISHED TALE.
For a minute or two Methuselah mumbled inarticulately to himself.

Then, to their intense discomfiture, he began once more: "In the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, King Charles the Second, I, Nathaniel Cross--" "Oh, this will never do," Felix cried.

"We haven't got yet to the secret at all.

Muriel, do try to set him right.

He must waste no breath.