"The young gentleman was to stop an' lunch with the master, an' i'
the meantime would have a glass o' wine an' a biscuit; an' pullin' a
bunch o' keys from his pocket, he desired Mr. Harper to take a
certain one and go to the door that was locked inside the
wine-cellar, and bring a bottle from a certain bin. Harper took the
key, an' was just goin' from the room, when he h'ard the
visitor--though in truth he was more at hame there than any of
us--h'ard him say, 'I'll tell you what you've been doing, sir, and
you'll tell me whether I'm not right!' Hearin' that, the butler drew
the door to, but not that close, and made no haste to leave it, and
so h'ard what followed.
"'I'll tell you what you've been doin',' says he. 'Didn't you find a
man's head--a skull, I mean, upon the premises?' 'Well, yes, I
believe we did, when I think of it!' says the master; 'for my
butler'--an' there was the butler outside a listenin' to the whole
tale!--'my butler came to me one mornin', sayin', "Look here, sir!
that is what I found in a little box, close by the door of the
wine-cellar! It's a skull!" "Oh," said I '--it was the master that
was speakin'--'"it'll be some medical student has brought it home to
the house!" So he asked me what he had better do with it.' 'And you
told him,' interrupted the gentleman, 'to bury it!' 'I did; it
seemed the proper thing to do.
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