his work.

The short afternoon was drawing to a close when young Johnny Eyre came
sailing in from Loch Fyne, himself and a boy of ten or twelve managing
that crank little boat with its top-heavy sails. "Are you at work yet,
Lavender?" he said. "I never saw such a beggar. It's getting quite
dark."

"What sort of luncheon did Newstead give you, Johnny?"

"Oh, something worth going for, I can tell you. You want to live in
Tarbert for a month or two to find out the value of decent cooking
and good wine. He was awfully surprised when I described this place to
him. He wouldn't believe you were living here in a cottage: I said
a garret, for I pitched it hot and strong, mind you. I said you were
living in a garret, that you never saw a razor, and lived on oatmeal
porridge and whisky, and that your only amusement was going out at
night and risking your neck in this delightful boat of mine. You
should have seen him examining this remarkable vessel. And there were
two ladies on board, and they were asking after you, too."

"Who were they?"

"I don't know. I didn't catch their names when I was introduced; but
the noble skipper called one of them Polly."

"Oh, I know."

"Ain't you coming ashore, Lavender? You can't see to work now."

"All right! I shall put my traps ashore, and then I'll have a run with
you down Loch Fyne if you like, Johnny."

"Well, I don't like," said the handsome lad frankly, "for it's looking
rather squally about. It seems to me you're bent on drowning yourself.
Before those other fellows went, they came to the conclusion that you
had committed a murder."

"Did they really?" Lavender said with little interest.

"And if you go away and live in that wild place you were talking of
during the winter, they will be quite sure of it. Why, man, you'd come
back with your hair turned white. You might as well think of living by
yourself at the Arctic Pole."

Neither Johnny Eyre nor any of the men who had just left Tarbert knew
anything of Frank Lavender's recent history, and Lavender himself was
not disposed to be communicative. They would know soon enough when
they went up to London. In the mean time they were surprised to find
that Lavender's habits were very singularly altered. He had grown
miserly. They laughed when he told them he had no money, and he
did not seek to persuade them of the fact; but it was clear, at all
events, that none of them lived so frugally or worked so anxiously
as he. Then, when