Like shadows we stole forth and across the cove. No one spied us, and, thanks perhaps to Major Dilke's sustained oratory, no one heard.
"There's a track hereabouts," my new friend whispered as we gained the farther cliff. "This looks like it—no—yes, here it is! Close after me, sonny, and up we go. Surely, 'tis Robinson Crusoe and man Friday with a touch of something else thrown in—can't think what, for the moment, unless 'tis the scaling of Plataea. Ever read Thucydides?"
"No, sir."
"He's a nigger. He floored me at Brasenose: but I bear the old cock no malice. Now you wouldn't think I was a University man, eh?"
"No, sir." I had not the least notion of his meaning.
"I am, though; and, what's more, I'm a Justice of the Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant for the county of Cornwall. Ever heard of Jack Rogers of Brynn?"
Once more I had to answer "No, sir."
"Then, excuse me, but where in thunder do you come from?" He halted and confronted me in the path. This was a facer, for the words "Justice of the Peace" had already set me quaking.
"If you please, sir, I'd rather not tell."
"No, I dare say not," he replied magisterially. "It's my fate to get into these false positions. Now there was Josh Truscott of Blowinghouse—Justice of the Peace and owned two thousand acres—what you might call a neat little property. He never allowed it to interfere, and yet somehow he carried it off. Do I make myself plain?"