Now, if this is so, and we can fix it on him, I merely _suggest_ that we can make the matter highly useful.

I don't know," he added, beginning to sit down, "but that it is an action we owe to the community--hem!" "How do you propose to handle the subject ?" asked the President.
"I was thinking," said the speaker, "that, as a Board of Directors, it would be unadvisable for us to authorize any action involving trespass; but if you, for instance, Mr.President, should, as it were, for mere curiosity, _request_ some one, as, for instance, our excellent Secretary, simply as a personal favor, to look into the matter--this is merely a suggestion." The Secretary smiled sufficiently to be understood that, while he certainly did not consider such preposterous service a part of his duties as secretary, he might, notwithstanding, accede to the President's request; and the Board adjourned.
Little White, as the Secretary was called, was a mild, kind-hearted little man, who, nevertheless, had no fear of any thing, unless it was the fear of being unkind.
"I tell you frankly," he privately said to the President, "I go into this purely for reasons of my own." The next day, a little after nightfall, one might have descried this little man slipping along the rear fence of the Poquelin place, preparatory to vaulting over into the rank, grass-grown yard, and bearing himself altogether more after the manner of a collector of rare chickens than according to the usage of secretaries.
The picture presented to his eye was not calculated to enliven his mind.
The old mansion stood out against the western sky, black and silent.

One long, lurid pencil-stroke along a sky of slate was all that was left of daylight.

No sign of life was apparent; no light at any window, unless it might have been on the side of the house hidden from view.

No owls were on the chimneys, no dogs were in the yard.
He entered the place, and ventured up behind a small cabin which stood apart from the house.