. "It
might have been anything--toothache, for instance. And you may have
dreamed it for all I know. Didn't you try to sleep?"

"No, sir. I didn't even try to go to sleep."

Ricardo informed his patron of his vigil on the veranda, and of the
revelation which put an end to it. He concluded that a man up with a
cigar in the middle of the night must be doing a think.

Mr Jones raised himself on his elbow. This sign of interest comforted
his faithful henchman.

"Seems to me it's time we did a little think ourselves," added Ricardo,
with more assurance. Long as they had been together the moods of his
governor were still a source of anxiety to his simple soul.

"You are always making a fuss," remarked Mr. Jones, in a tolerant tone.

"Ay, but not for nothing, am I? You can't say that, sir. Mine may not be
a gentleman's way of looking round a thing, but it isn't a fool's way,
either. You've admitted that much yourself at odd times."

Ricardo was growing warmly argumentative. Mr. Jones interrupted him
without heat.

"You haven't roused me to talk about yourself, I presume?"

"No, sir." Ricardo remained silent for a minute, with the tip of
his tongue caught between his teeth. "I don't think I could tell you
anything about myself that you don't know," he continued. There was a
sort of amused satisfaction in his tone which changed completely as he
went on. "It's that man, over there, that's got to be talked over. I
don't like him."

He, failed to observe the flicker of a ghastly smile on his governor's
lips.

"Don't you?" murmured Mr. Jones, whose face, as he reclined on his
elbow, was on a level with the top of his follower's head.

"No, sir," said Ricardo emphatically. The candle from the other side of
the room threw his monstrous black shadow on the wall. "He--I don't know
how to say it--he isn't hearty-like."

Mr Jones agreed languidly in his own manner:

"He seems to be a very self-possessed man."

"Ay, that's it. Self--" Ricardo choked with indignation. "I would soon
let out some of his self-possession through a hole between his ribs, if
this weren't a special job!"

Mr Jones had been making his own reflections, for he asked:

"Do you think he is suspicious?"

"I don't see very well what he can be suspicious of," pondered Ricardo.
"Yet there he was doing a think. And what could be the object of it?
What made him get out of his bed in the middle of the night. 'Tain't
fleas, surely."

"Bad conscience, p