“It is simple, my fatuous and over self-confident friend. You have greatly enlightened me. I do not come from the house. I was benighted yester-eve in the snow, and this morning, seeking to escape from my predicament, stumbled hap-hazard upon your camp.”
“You do not come from the house!”
“On the contrary. From quite another direction.”
“And you are alone?”
“Surely that is a superfluous question?”
For the moment Mr. Fern seemed to blaze up into a rather fearful travesty of himself. The contrast between his white hair and brick-red face became an exceedingly baneful one. In the flashing of the fire, however, he was his placid self again.
“This,” he said (his precise lips seemed educated, like stops, to the exact harmonies of speech), “all redounds to our advantage. Wherever you come from, you have fallen a very opportune hostage.”
“Ah! my friend. But it shows others than the master of the house to be on the alert. I am not informed of the details of your attack; but no doubt you thought to rush the place at your first assault.”
“You are absolutely right. We failed in that; but I may tell you, sir, that any prolonged resistance there, besides necessarily proving futile, will greatly incense my men.”
“But why necessarily futile?”