"Never mind--never mind--I shall make no bad use of what I have
learned," said Touchwood. "Were you to eat your words with the best
fish-sauce, (and that is Burgess's,) I have got all the information from
them I wanted."

"You are strangely pertinacious, sir," replied Jekyl.

"O, a rock, a piece of flint for that--What I have learned, I have
learned, but I will make no bad use of it.--Hark ye, Captain, I have no
malice against your friend--perhaps the contrary--but he is in a bad
course, sir--has kept a false reckoning, for as deep as he thinks
himself; and I tell you so, because I hold you (your finery out of the
question) to be, as Hamlet says, indifferent honest; but, if you were
not, why necessity is necessity; and a man will take a Bedouin for his
guide in the desert, whom he would not trust with an aspar in the
cultivated field; so I think of reposing some confidence in you--have
not made up my mind yet, though."

"On my word, sir, I am greatly flattered both by your intentions and
your hesitation," said Captain Jekyl. "You were pleased to say just now,
that every one concerned with these matters was something particular."

"Ay, ay--something crazy--a little mad, or so. That was what I said, and
I can prove it."

"I should be glad to hear the proof," said Jekyl--"I hope you do not
except yourself?"

"Oh! by no means," answered Touchwood; "I am one of the maddest old boys
ever slept out of straw, or went loose. But you can put fishing
questions in your turn, Captain, I see that--you would fain know how
much, or how little, I am in all these secrets. Well, that is as
hereafter may be. In the meantime, here are my proofs.--Old Scrogie
Mowbray was mad, to like the sound of Mowbray better than that of
Scrogie; young Scrogie was mad, not to like it as well. The old Earl of
Etherington was not sane when he married a French wife in secret, and
devilish mad indeed when he married an English one in public. Then for
the good folk here, Mowbray of St. Ronan's is cracked, when he wishes to
give his sister to he knows not precisely whom: She is a fool not to
take him, because she _does_ know who he is, and what has been between
them; and your friend is maddest of all, who seeks her under so heavy a
penalty:--and you and I, Captain, go mad gratis, for company's sake,
when we mix ourselves with such a mess of folly and frenzy."

"Really, sir, all that you have said is an absolute riddle to me,"
replied the embarrassed Jek