"Oh, the Willoughbys of Waterton," she said. "I have heard a great
deal about them. Father used to know the old gentleman. He was a great
collector of rare books, but he is dead now. If you had met him you
would have found him a man of your own tastes."
When I was going away she stopped me for a moment. "I forgot to ask
you," she said; "did you take any of those capsules I gave you when
you were starting off on your cycle?"
"Yes," said I, "I took some of them." But I could not well explain the
capricious way in which I had endeavored to guard against the germs of
malaria, and to call my own attention to the threatening germs of
erratic fancy.
"Then you do not think they did you any good?" she said.
"I am not sure," I replied. "I cannot say anything about that. But of
one thing I am certain, and that is, that if any germs of any kind
entered my system, it is perfectly free from them now."
"I am glad to hear that," she said.
It was about a week after this that I received a letter from Percy
Larramie. "I thought you would like to know about the bear," he wrote.
"Somebody must have forgotten to feed him, and he broke his chain and
got away. He went straight over to the Holly Sprig Inn, and I expect
he did that because the inn was the last place he had seen his master.
I did not know bears cared so much for masters. He didn't stay long at
the inn, but he stayed long enough to bite a boy. Then he went into
the woods.
"As soon as we heard of it we all set off on a bear-hunt. It was jolly
fun, although I did not so much as catch a sight of him. Father shot
him at a three-hundred-foot range. It was a Winchester rifle with a
thirty-two cartridge. It was a beautiful shot, Walter said, and I wish
I had made it.
"We took his skin off and tore it only in two or three places, which
can be mended. Would you like to have the skin, and do you care
particularly about the head? If you don't, I would like to have it,
because without it the skeleton will not be perfect."
I wrote to Percy that I did not desire so much as a single hair of the
beast. I did not tell him so, but I despised the bears of Cathay.