“I don’t want you to come!”
“Don’t you? Who gave you leave to dictate to me, I should like to know?”
“Well, come if you like.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harrier, for the permission.”
We resumed our way, and I walked by Harry’s side, ruffling. Presently he said—
“I say! Supposing that old Pilbrow’s treasure had anything to do with the secret in the hill! What a lovely complication!”
“I don’t see why it particularly should,” I snapped. “It had to do with a book; not—not with a hash of smugglers.”
I took no longer interest in Joshua for the moment. Harry had put all that story out of my head. He saw I was worked up, and said no more. We parted where our roads branched, on my side in a very depressed condition. My dinner choked me, and my desperate efforts to simulate appetite only brought me observation. Uncle Jenico was quite concerned, and Mrs. Puddephatt disgustingly critical.
“It’s the hair,” she said. “Soon or late it was bound to find ’im hout. I don’t blame you, sir, for noticing at the eleventh hour what’s long been apperient to the casual. The heyes of love is blind, and incapable of seeing into the stomach. The young gentleman, sir, is sickening for London, and no wonder. We know, sir, what Scripture says is the dog’s fancy; and is a human to be judged more himpervious to what he’s give up? Let Master Richard breathe the hair of his native ’eath once more is my advice.”
“Is there any truth in this, Dick?” said Uncle Jenico, when she had gone. “Have you been, perhaps unconsciously, thinking of London lately, because——”