CHAPTER XII.
I had intended it for a peaceful, solitary walk up-town after business on that beautiful Saturday afternoon; and had in fact accomplished the better part of it. I was inhaling huge quantities of the balmy air and reveling in the exhilaration of the exercise.
But passing the picture store, I experienced a queer sensation—perhaps “that feeling of impending evil” we read about in the patent medicine advertisements.
It may have been because I recalled that in that very shop Hawkins had demonstrated the virtues of his infallible Lightning Canvas-Stretcher, and thereby ruined somebody's priceless and unpurchasable Corot.
At any rate my eyes were drawn to the place as I passed; and like a cuckoo-bird emerging from the clock, out popped Hawkins.
“Ah, Griggs,” he exclaimed. “Out for a walk?”
“What were you doing in there?”
“Going to walk home?”