Duggs?"

Mr Duggs gave him one look of his dull eyes, and walked straight for the
door. As he went out he merely remarked, "Our acquaintance has been brief,
Mr Butler, but it has been quite sufficient."

"Quite," thought Mr Bunker.

CHAPTER III.

That was Mr Bunker's first and last meeting with the Rev. John Duggs, and
he took no small credit to himself for having so effectually incensed his
neighbour, without, at the same time, bringing suspicion on anything more
pertinent than his sobriety.

And yet sometimes in the course of the next three days he would have been
thankful to see him again, if only to have another passage-of-arms. The
time passed most wearily; the consulting-room blinds were never raised; no
cabs stopped before the doctor's door; nobody except the little servant
ever moved about the house.

He could think of no plan better than waiting; and so he waited, showing
himself seldom in the streets, and even sitting behind the curtain while
he watched at the window. After writing at some length to the Baron he had
no further correspondence that he could distract himself with; he was even
forced once or twice to dip into the theological works. Mrs Gabbon had
evidently "'eard sommat" from Mr Duggs, and treated him to little of her
society. The boredom became so excessive that he decided he must make a
move soon, however rash it was.

The only active step he took, and indeed the only step he saw his way to
take, was a call on Dr Twiddel's _locum_. But luck seemed to run dead
against him. Dr Billson had departed "on his holiday," he was informed,
and would not return for three weeks. So Mr Bunker was driven back to his
window and the Baron's cigars.

It was the evening of his fourth day in Mrs Gabbon's rooms. He had
finished a modest dinner and was dealing himself hands at piquet with an
old pack of cards, when he heard the rattle of a cab coming up the street.
The usual faint flicker of hope rose: the cab stopped below him, the
flicker burned brighter, and in an instant he was at the window. He opened
the slats of the blind, and the flicker was aflame. Before the doctor's
house a four-wheeled cab was standing laden with luggage, and two men were
going up the steps. He watched the luggage being taken in and the cab
drive away, and then he turned radiantly back to the fire.

"The curtain is up," he said to himself. "What's the first act to be?"

Presently he put