“Then why on earth didn’t you come and speak to me, my good man, instead of crawling about after me like a Red Indian? It’s easy enough to find me, I suppose?”
“It isn’t about a farm that I wish to see you, sir,” went on Samuel, ignoring the question. “No, sir, this ain’t no matter between a proud landlord and a poor tenant coming to beg a few pounds off his rent for his children’s bread, as it were. This is a matter between man and man, or perhaps between man and woman.”
“Look here,” said Henry, “are you crazed, or are you asking me riddles? Because, if so, you may as well give it up, for I hate them. What is your name?”
“My name, sir, is Samuel Rock,”—here his manner suddenly became insolent,—“and I have come to ask you a riddle; and what’s more, I mean to get an answer to it. What have you done with Joan Haste?”
“Oh! I see,” said Henry. “I wonder I didn’t recognise you. Now, Mr. Samuel Rock, by way of a beginning let me recommend you to keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m not the kind of person to be bullied, do you understand?”
Samuel looked at Henry’s blue eyes, that shone somewhat ominously, and at his determined chin and mouth, and understood.
“I’m sure I meant no offence, sir,” he replied, again becoming obsequious.
“Very well: then be careful to give none. It is quite easy to be polite when once you get used to it. Now I will answer your question. I have done nothing with Joan Haste—about whom, by the way, you have not the slightest right to question me. I don’t know where she is, and I have neither seen nor heard of her for several weeks. Good morning!”
“That, sir, is a——”
“Now, pray be careful.” And Henry turned to go.