uld meet me in the village, on the Cob, on the links, and
pass by as if I were the Invisible Man. And why? Because of the
reptile, Hawk. The worm, Hawk. The dastard and varlet, Hawk.

I crammed my hat on, and hurried out of the house towards the village.

CHAPTER XVI

A CHANCE MEETING

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 at length leaning over the sea-wall near the church, gazing
thoughtfully into 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, he
showed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown. His
eyes 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 by
some laborious process known only to himself. At present my words
conveyed no meaning to him. He was trying to identify me. He had seen
me before somewhere, he was certain, but he could not say where, or who
I was.

"I want to know," I said, "what induced you to be such an abject idiot
as to let our arrangement get known?"

I spoke quietly. I was not going to waste the choicer flowers of speech
on a man who was incapable of understanding them. Later on, when he had
awakened to a sense of his position, I would begin really to talk to
him.

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

"Mr. Garnick," he said at last.

"From ch--chicken farm," he continued, with the triumphant air of a
cross-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 huge
hand.

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

"I want to know," I said distinctly, "what you've got to say for
yourself after letting our affair with the professor become public
property?"

He paused awhile in thought.

"Dear sir," he said at last, as if he were dictating a letter, "dear
sir, I owe you--ex--exp----"

He waved his hand, as who should say, "It's a stiff job, but I'm going
to 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 this
ol' buffl