Fenn was up first. Many years' experience of being tackled at fullspeed on the football field had taught him how to fall. The stranger,whose football days, if he had ever had any, were long past, had gonedown with a crash, and remained on the pavement, motionless. Fenn wasconscious of an ignoble impulse to fly without stopping to chat aboutthe matter. Then he was seized with a gruesome fear that he hadinjured the man seriously, which vanished when the stranger sat up.

　　His first words were hardly of the sort that one would listen to fromchoice. His first printable expression, which did not escape him untilhe had been speaking some time, was in the nature of an officialbulletin.

　　"You've broken my neck," said he.

　　Fenn renewed his apologies and explanations.

　　"Your watch!" cried the man in a high, cracked voice. "Don't standthere talking about your watch, but help me up. What do I care aboutyour watch? Why don't you look where you are going to? Now then, nowthen, don't hoist me as if I were a hod of bricks. That's right. Nowhelp me indoors, and go away."Fenn supported him while he walked lamely into the house. He wasrelieved to find that there was nothing more the matter with him thana shaking and a few bruises.

　　"Door on the left," said the injured one.

　　Fenn led him down the passage and into a small sitting-room. The gaswas lit, and as he turned it up he saw that the stranger was a manwell advanced in years. He had grey hair that was almost white. Hisface was not a pleasant one. It was a mass of lines and wrinkles fromwhich a physiognomist would have deduced uncomplimentary conclusionsas to his character. Fenn had little skill in that way, but he feltthat for some reason he disliked the man, whose eyes, which were smalland extraordinarily bright, gave rather an eerie look to his face.

　　"Go away, go away," he kept repeating savagely from his post on theshabby sofa on which Fenn had deposited him.

　　"But are you all right? Can't I get you something?" asked theEckletonian.

　　"Go away, go away," repeated the man.

　　Conversation on these lines could never be really attractive. Fennturned to go. As he closed the door and began to feel his way alongthe dark passage, he heard the key turn in the lock behind him. Theman could not, he felt, have been very badly hurt if he were able toget across the room so quickly. The thought relieved him somewhat.

　　Nobody likes to have the maiming even of the most complete stranger onhis mind. The sensation of relief lasted possibly three seconds. Thenit flashed upon him that in the excitement of the late interview hehad forgotten his cap. That damaging piece of evidence lay on thetable in the sitting-room, and between him and it was a locked door.

　　He groped his way back, and knocked. No sound came from the room.

　　"I say," he cried, "you might let me have my cap. I left it on thetable."No reply.

　　Fenn half thought of making a violent assault on the door. Herefrained on reflecting that it would be useless. If he could break itopen--which, in all probability, he could not--there would be troublesuch as he had never come across in his life. He was not sure it wouldnot be an offence for which he would be rendered liable to fine orimprisonment. At any rate, it would mean the certain detection of hisvisit to the town. So he gave the thing up, resolving to return on themorrow and reopen negotiations. For the present, what he had to do wasto get safely back to his house. He had lost his watch, his cap withhis name in it was in the hands of an evil old man who evidently borehim a grudge, and he had to run the gauntlet of three house-mastersand get to bed _via_ a study-window. Few people, even after thedullest of plays, have returned from the theatre so disgusted witheverything as did Fenn. Reviewing the situation as he ran with long,easy strides over the road that led to Kay's, he found it devoid ofany kind of comfort. Unless his mission in quest of the cap shouldprove successful, he was in a tight place.

　　It is just as well that the gift of second sight is accorded to butfew. If Fenn could have known at this point that his adventures wereonly beginning, that what had taken place already was but as theoverture to a drama, it is possible that he would have thrown up thesponge for good and all, entered Kay's by way of the front door--afterknocking up the entire household--and remarked, in answer to hishouse-master's excited questions, "Enough! Enough! I am a victim ofFate, a Toad beneath the Harrow. Sack me tomorrow, if you like, butfor goodness' sake let me get quietly to bed now."As it was, not being able to "peep with security into futurity," heimagined that the worst was over.

　　He began to revise this opinion immediately on turning in at Kay'sgate. He had hardly got half-way down the drive when the front dooropened and two indistinct figures came down the steps. As they did sohis foot slipped off the grass border on which he was running todeaden the noise of his steps, and grated sharply on the gravel.

　　"What's that?" said a voice. The speaker was Mr Kay.

　　"What's what?" r............