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

He paused a while in thought.

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

"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' bufflehead into sea,' you said, 'an' gormed if I don't give
'ee a gould savrin.' That's what you said me. Isn't that what you said
me?"

I did not deny it.

"Ve' well. I said you, 'Right,' I said. I tipped the ol' soul into
sea, and I got the gould savrin."

"Yes, you took care of that. All this is quite true, but it's beside
the point. We are not disputing about what happened. What I want to
know for the third time--is what made you let the cat out of the bag?
Why couldn't you keep quiet about it?"

He waved his hand.

"Dear sir," he replied. "This way. Listen me."

It was a tragic story that he unfolded. My wrath ebbed as I listened.
After all, the fellow was not so greatly to blame. I felt that in his
place I should have acted as he had done. Fate was culpable, and fate
alone.

It appeared that he had not come well out of the matter of the
accident. I had not looked at it hitherto from his point of view.
While the rescue had left me the popular hero, it had had quite the
opposite result for him. He had upset his boat and would have drowned
his passenger, said public opinion, if the young hero from
London--myself--had not plunged in, and at the risk of his life
brought the professor to shore. Consequently, he was despised by all
as an inefficient boatman. He became a laughing stock. The local wags
made laborious jests when he passed. They offered him fabulous sums to
take their worst enemies out for a row with him. They wanted to know
when he was going to school to learn his business. In fact, they
behaved as wags do and always have done at all times all the world
over.

Now, all this Mr. Hawk, it seemed, would have borne cheerfully and
patiently for my sake, or, at any rate, for the sake of the good
golden sovereign I had given him. But a fresh factor appeared in the
problem, complicating it grievously. To wit, Miss Jane Muspratt.

"She said me," explained Mr. Hawk with pathos, "'Harry 'Awk,' she
said, 'yeou'm a girt fule, an' I don't marry noone as is ain't to be
trust