As soon as the heavy oaken door had fallen-to behind the master of this house, Beresteyn turned with marked eagerness to Diogenes.
"Now, sir," he said, "will you accord me your close attention for a moment. On my honour it will be to your advantage so to do."
"And to your own, I take it, sir," rejoined Diogenes, as he stepped down from the elevated platform and sat himself astride one of the ricketty chairs facing his interlocutor who had remained standing. "To your own too, sir, else you had not spent half an hour in that vervloekte weather last night pacing an insalubrious street in order to find out where I lodged."
Nicolaes bit his lip with vexation.
"You saw me?" he asked.
"I have eyes at the back of my head," replied the young man. "I knew that you followed me in company with a friend all the way from the door of the 'Lame Cow' and that you were not far off when I announced my intention of sleeping under the stars and asking my friend Frans Hals for some breakfast later on."
Beresteyn had quickly recovered his equanimity.
"I have no cause to deny it," he said.
"None," assented Diogenes.
"Something, sir, in your manner and your speech last night aroused my interest. Surely you would not take offence at that."