Nicky, whom she found sitting up in bed and partaking of a substantial breakfast, seemed to be little the worse for his adventure. Mrs. Barrow had fashioned a sling for his left arm and whenever he did not need the use of this arm he gratified her by slipping it into the sling. He too had been thinking over the night’s adventure, and he greeted Elinor with the pleasing suggestion that his assailant had been a French spy.
“A spy!” she exclaimed. “Oh, do not say so!”
““Well, one of Boney’s agents,” he amended. “John says he has any number of them and we do not know them all by any means.”
“But what should a French agent want with your cousin?”
“I don’t know, and, to tell you the truth, I should not have thought Eustace was the kind of fellow to be of the least use to anyone,” he replied. “But depend upon it, that is what it is!” He inserted a generous portion of cold beef into his mouth and added, somewhat thickly, “I dare say we have not seen the last of that fellow, not by a very long way. Why, for anything we know we have stumbled upon a really bang-up adventure!”
It was plain that he viewed the prospect with enthusiasm. Elinor could not share it. She said, with a shiver, “I wish you will not talk so! If it were true, only consider what might happen to us in this dreadful house!”
“Just what I was thinking,” nodded Nicky, spreading mustard over another portion of beef. “There is no saying indeed! I shall stay here.”
“Well, I shall not!” declared Elinor tartly. “I have no desire to lead a life of such adventure!”
“You would not like to catch one of Boney’s agents?” said Nicky incredulously.
“Not at all. I should not know what to do with him if I did. Yes, I should, though! I should set your horrid dog to guard him!”