And next he frenziedly unlocked the door and plucked the portal open, and plunged out again into the street. Glimpse of a figure in the distance served efficiently as spur, and Mr. Dobb raced wildly away in the opposite direction. Not until he had swerved round three successive corners did he feel emboldened to moderate his pace, and even then he travelled at something approximating a canter.
But at last he came to the region of the harbour, and reaching the “Flag and Pennant” shipway, he vigorously semaphored for the attendance of the ferryman stationed there. On his hasty arrival, that functionary found himself directed to take Mr. Dobb across the river with the utmost possible speed.
Mr. Samuel Clark, the ferryman, well used to the vagaries of his present patron and former shipmate of the “Jane Gladys,” made no immediate comment, but assisted his passenger into the boat and began to transport him with commendable energy. Mr. Dobb, removing his high collar and thrusting it into his pocket, made the noises of one narrowly saved from suffocation, and gazed fearfully over his shoulder at the receding river bank.
“I—I—I ain’t got the breath to hexplain now, Sam,” he puffed, presently. “Put me down over there by the ‘Red Lion,’ and then go back and make up a yarn. And get some one to take your place. And then go and fetch Peter Lock and Joe Tridge, and bring ’em over yonder to me at once.”
“Doings?” asked Mr. Clark, with the liveliest expectancy.
“Not ’alf!” was Mr. Dobb’s reply. “Not ’alf!” he said again; and shivered perceptibly.
In face of this discouraging reply, Mr. Clark had not the hardihood to press for more explicit information. Ever one to concede that there was a wrong time and a right time to appeal to Mr. Dobb’s confidence, the look on that gentleman’s face warned him that this was indubitably one of the wrong times.
In pondering silence, therefore, did the plump and ancient ferryman bend his best efforts to conveying Mr. Dobb to the further side of the harbour, and when this had been achieved, he immediately put about to accord loyal and unquestioning fulfilment to the remainder of Mr. Dobb’s instructions.
Well within the hour, Mr. Clark returned in convoy of Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock, and the three entered the presence of Mr. Dobb in the otherwise vacant tap-room of the “Red Lion.”
Mr. Dobb had recovered some meed of his composure in the interval, but the rosiness of complexion induced by violent exercise had now faded to an ascetic pallor, and his eyes looked up dully from deep and dark circles. Evidence of his mental state was afforded by the fact that he was sitting on his ornate hat.