u think best. I'll call on you after breakfast;
let me go now. Basta! Basta!"

Losely wrenched himself from the manager, and strode off to the inn;
then, ere joining Poole, he sought Mrs. Crane. "This going before a
magistrate," said Losely, "to depose that I have made over my child to
that blackguard showman--in this town too, after such luck as I have had
and where bright prospects are opening on me--is most disagreeable. And
supposing, when we have traced Sophy, she should be really with the old
man; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella," (Losely could be
very coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for
me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as
breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that
ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow." He
was out of the room before she could answer.

Mrs. Crane found it no easy matter to soothe the infuriate manager when
he heard Losely was gone to amuse himself at the race-course. Nor did
she give herself much trouble to pacify Mr. Rugge's anger or assist his
investigations. Her interest in the whole affair seemed over. Left thus
to his own devices, Rugge, however, began to institute a sharp, and
what promised to be an effective, investigation. He ascertained that the
fugitive certainly had not left by the railway or by any of the public
conveyances; he sent scoots over all the neighbourhood: he enlisted the
sympathy of the police, who confidently assured him that they had "a
network over the three kingdoms." Rugge's suspicions were directed to
Waife: he could collect, however, no evidence to confirm them. No
person answering to Waife's description had been seen in the town. Once,
indeed, Rugge was close on the right scent; for, insisting upon Waife's
one eye, and his possession of a white dog, he was told by several
witnesses that a man blind of two eyes, and led by a black dog, had been
close before the stage, just previous to the performance. But then the
clown had spoken to that very man; all the Thespian company had observed
him; all of them had known Waife familiarly for years; and all deposed
that any creature more unlike to Waife than the blind man could not
be turned out of Nature's workshop. But where was that blind man? They
found out the wayside inn in which he had taken a lodging for the night;
and there it was ascertained that he had paid for his room beforehand,