I roamed the place in search of the varlet for the space of half-an-hour, and, after having drawn all his familiar haunts, found him atlength leaning over the sea-wall near the church, gazing thoughtfullyinto the waters below.

　　I confronted him.

　　"Well," I said, "you're a beauty, aren't you?"He eyed me owlishly. Even at this early hour, I was grieved to see, heshowed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown. Hiseyes were filmy, and his manner aggressively solemn.

　　"Beauty?" he echoed.

　　"What have you got to say for yourself?""Say f'self."It was plain that he was engaged in pulling his faculties together bysome laborious process known only to himself. At present my wordsconveyed no meaning to him. He was trying to identify me. He had seenme before somewhere, he was certain, but he could not say where, orwho I was.

　　"I want to know," I said, "what induced you to be such an abject idiotas to let our arrangement get known?"I spoke quietly. I was not going to waste the choicer flowers ofspeech on a man who was incapable of understanding them. Later on,when he had awakened to a sense of his position, I would begin reallyto talk to him.

　　He continued to stare at me. Then a sudden flash of intelligence litup his features.

　　"Mr. Garnick," he said at last.

　　"From ch--chicken farm," he continued, with the triumphant air of across-examining King's counsel who has at last got on the track.

　　"Yes," I said.

　　"Up top the hill," he proceeded, clinchingly. He stretched out a hugehand.

　　"How you?" he inquired with a friendly grin.

　　"I want to know," I said distinctly, "what you've got to say foryourself after letting our affair with the professor become publicproperty?"He paused awhile in thought.

　　"Dear sir," he said at last, as if he were dictating a letter, "dearsir, I owe you--ex--exp----"He waved his hand, as who should say, "It's a stiff job, but I'm goingto do it.""Explashion," he said.

　　"You do," said I grimly. "I should like to hear it.""Dear sir, listen me.""Go on then.""You came me. You said 'Hawk, Hawk, ol' fren', listen me. You tip thisol' bufflehead into watter,' you said, 'an' gormed if I don't give 'eea poond note.' That's what you said me. Isn't that what you said me?"I did not deny it.

　　" 'Ve' well,' I said you. 'Right,' I said. I tipped the ol' soul intowatter, and I got the poond note.""Yes, you took care of that. All this is quite true, but it's besidethe point. We are not disputing about what happened. What I want toknow--for the third time--is what made you let the cat out of the bag?

　　Why couldn't you keep quiet about it?"He waved his hand.