I roamed the place in search of the varlet for the space of half-an-hour, and, after having drawn all his familiar haunts, found him atlength leaning over the sea-wall near the church, gazing thoughtfullyinto the waters below.

　　I confronted him.

　　"Well," I said, "you're a beauty, aren't you?"He eyed me owlishly. Even at this early hour, I was grieved to see, heshowed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown. Hiseyes were filmy, and his manner aggressively solemn.

　　"Beauty?" he echoed.

　　"What have you got to say for yourself?""Say f'self."It was plain that he was engaged in pulling his faculties together bysome laborious process known only to himself. At present my wordsconveyed no meaning to him. He was trying to identify me. He had seenme before somewhere, he was certain, but he could not say where, orwho I was.

　　"I want to know," I said, "what induced you to be such an abject idiotas to let our arrangement get known?"I spoke quietly. I was not going to waste the choicer flowers ofspeech on a man who was incapable of understanding them. Later on,when he had awakened to a sense of his position, I would begin reallyto talk to him.

　　He continued to stare at me. Then a sudden flash of intelligence litup his features.

　　"Mr. Garnick," he said at last.

　　"From ch--chicken farm," he continued, with the triumphant air of across-examining King's counsel who has at last got on the track.

　　"Yes," I said.

　　"Up top the hill," he proceeded, clinchingly. He stretched out a hugehand.

　　"How you?" he inquired with a friendly grin.

　　"I want to know," I said distinctly, "what you've got to say foryourself after letting our affair with the professor become publicproperty?"He paused awhile in thought.

　　"Dear sir," he said at last, as if he were dictating a letter, "dearsir, I owe you--ex--exp----"He waved his hand, as who should say, "It's a stiff job, but I'm goingto do it.""Explashion," he said.

　　"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 thisol' bufflehead into watter,' you said, 'an' gormed if I don't give 'eea poond note.' 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 intowatter, and I got the poond note.""Yes, you took care of that. All this is quite true, but it's besidethe point. We are not disputing about what happened. What I want toknow--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 hisplace I should have acted as he had done. It was Fate's fault, andFate's alone.

　　It appeared that he had not come well out of the matter of theaccident. 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 theopposite result for him. He had upset his boat and would have drownedhis passenger, said public opinion, if the young hero from London--myself--had not plunged in, and at the risk of his life brought theprofessor ashore. Consequently, he was despised by all as aninefficient boatman. He became a laughing-stock. The local wags madelaborious jests when he passed. They offered him fabulous sums to taketheir worst enemies out for a row with him. They wanted to know whenhe was going to school to learn his business. In fact, they behaved aswags do and always have done at all times all the world over.

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

　　"She said to me," explained Mr. Hawk with pathos, " 'Harry 'Awk,' shesaid, 'yeou'm a girt fule, an' I don't marry noone as is ain't to betrusted in a boat by hisself, and what has jokes made about him bythat Tom Leigh!' ""I punched Tom Leigh," observed Mr. Hawk parenthetically. " 'So,' shesaid me, 'you can go away, an' I don't want to see yeou again!' "This heartless conduct on the part of Miss Muspratt had had thenatural result of making him confess in self-defence; and she hadwritten to the professor the same night.

　　I forgave Mr. Hawk. I think he was hardly sober enough to understand,for he betrayed no emotion. "It is Fate, Hawk," I said, "simply Fate.

　　There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,and it's no good grumbling.""Yiss," said Mr. Hawk, after chewing this sentiment for a while insilence, "so she said me, 'Hawk,' she said--like that--'you're a girtfule----' ""That's all right," I replied. "I quite understand. As I say, it'ssimply Fate. Good-bye." And I left him.

　　As I was going back, I met the professor and Phyllis. They passed mewithout a look.

　　I wandered on in quite a fervour of self-pity. I was in one of thosemoods when life suddenly seems to become irksome, when the futurestretches black and grey in front of one. I should have liked to havefaded almost imperceptibly from the world, like Mr. Bardell, even if,as in his case, it had involved being knocked on the head with a pintpot in a public-house cellar.

　　In such a moo............