e Connecticut shore. As I stole along in the darkness, my ear
caught far ahead a voice roaring out a ribald song--and I knew that
the time had come to take personal charge of my wretched client--
the "old man of the sea" that my own stupidity had seated upon my
shoulders. Soon I overtook them, the Italian stolidly driving his
weary horse and Hawkins sitting beside him with the sack wrapped
around his shoulders. I halted them, threw my bicycle in among
the vegetables, and climbed up to where they sat. Hawkins gave a
great shout of laughter when he saw who it was and threw his arm
around my neck, but I pushed him away and he nearly fell under the
wheels. My gorge rose at him! Yet to him I was shackled as tightly
as ever a criminal was to his keeper!

The thought of the remainder of that night and of the ensuing three
days and nights sickens me even now. In the early dawn we crossed
the ferry with dozens of other produce-laden wagons and landed on
the opposite side of the Sound, where we caught a local train for
Hartford. I had made no arrangements for communicating with
Gottlieb, and was in utter ignorance of whether or not our escape
had been discovered. We sat in the smoking-car, Hawkins by this
time ill and peevish. The air was stifling, yet I could not,
arrayed as I was or in the company of my client, go into the regular
passenger coach. At Hartford we changed for Springfield and I
purchased a New York paper. There was nothing in it relating to
the case and I breathed more easily; but, once in Springfield, I
knew not which way to turn, and Hawkins by this time was crazy for
drink and refusing to go farther. I gave him enough liquor to keep
him quiet and thrust him on a way train for Worcester. Already I
had exhausted my small bills and when I tried to cash one for a
hundred dollars the ticket agent in the station eyed me with
suspicion.

That night we slept in a single bed, Hawkins and I, in a cheap
lodging-house--that is, _he_ slept a sordid, drunken sleep, while
I lay tossing and cursing my fate until, burning with fever, I rose
and drained part of the water in the pitcher. Yet, in the early
morning hours there came to me the first ray of hope throughout
that dreary space since I had left New York--the Quirks! The
Quirks! Twenty years had passed since I had heard from them. They
might be dead and gone long ago without my knowing it; yet, were
they alive, I felt that one or other of them would ho