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"Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his watch now and then, and when I did once get a look at us face it made me er uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, sir." I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better.
To-night I knew something was up, for he got out and rang the door-bell like a Christian. They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until it gleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful. "Not pinched yet!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of that for luck! You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence."
Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. "It must have been twelve o'clock when we got back; I wanted the children to see everything, because it isn't likely they'll ever see another wreck like that. Rows of "
The slow, dusky colour rises in Saxham's set, pale face, and as slowly sinks out again. He has been standing in low-toned colloquy with the Chief outside the heavy plush curtains. He turns silently upon his heel and vanishes behind them. "Ting ting ting!" The telephone-bell heralds an urgent recall from Hotchkiss Outpost North.
Oliver grinned broadly, but recovered himself in a moment. "Hotchkiss," he said with great gravity, "you would never do for the movies." Janet was eating her breakfast very deliberately next morning, lingering even after Cousin Jasper had left them and while Oliver sat back in his chair fidgeting in frank impatience.
The man entered with a nod and the expectant, inquiring look of a busy man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took his hat from his half-reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. "A er slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss," he suggested, politely.
At Rockford get Chief Police at Faversham on 'phone; name Malcolm Hotchkiss. Tell him all that happened to us, about bear men, and that one of them asked Davy to let chief know if he saw footprint of marked shoe around. Believe that man on island, and that he is thief wanted by authorities. How?" This last was the query they understood between them.
Coming upon the terrace again, he saw Hotchkiss, just inside the long window, ushering out a visitor who was talking in loud, easily recognizable tones. "No, he doesn't seem to be here," Anthony Crawford was saying, "though I didn't believe you, until you let me come in and see for myself. I had something of great importance to say to him and to the girl. Well, I will come again to-morrow."
But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceased to look angry, and became sheepish. It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes.
There was quite a rush for the picture of his best girl, but I bought it in, along with one of his Ma and a one-pound Hotchkiss shell and the hilt of a Spanish officer's sword; and when I had laid them away in my haversack and had borrowed a sheet of paper and an envelope from the commissary sergeant to write to Benny's mother, it came over me what a little place a man fills in the world and how things go on much the same without him.
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