“In that book of your father's,—don't you remember it? It was he was mentioned as the guardian of that young girl, the daughter of him as was pisoned at Jersey.”
“And is this man Trover in search of Winthrop?” asked Layton, eagerly.
“Well, he's a-lookin' arter him, somehow, that's certain; for when somebody said, 'Oh, Harvey Winthrop ain't at Norfolk now,' he looked quite put out and amazed, and muttered something about having made all his journey for nothing.”
“It is strange, indeed, that we should have the same destination, and stranger still would it be if we should be both on the same errand.”
“Well,” said Quackin boss, after a long pause, “I've been a-rolling the log over and over, to see which way to cut it, and at last, I believe, I 've found the right side o' it. You and I must quarrel.”
“What do you mean?” asked Layton, in astonishment.
“I mean jest this. I must take up the suspicion that he has about you, and separate from you. It may be to join him. He's one of your Old-World sort, that's always so proud to be reckoned 'cute and smart, that you 've only to praise his legs to get his leggin's. We'll be as thick as thieves arter a week's travelling, and I 'll find out all that he's about. Trust Old Shaver, sir, to get to windward of small craft like that!”
“I own to you frankly,” said Layton, “that I don't fancy using a rogue's weapons even against a rogue.”
“Them's not the sentiments of the men that made laws, sir,” said Quackinboss. “Laws is jest rogues' weapons against rogues. You want to do something you have n't no right to, and straight away you discover that some fellow was so wide awake once that he made a statute against it, ay, and so cleverly too, that he first imagined every different way you could turn your dodge, and provided for each in turn.”
Layton shook his head in dissent, but could not repress a faint smile.