Varney nodded. "The minute they closed in on me," he said after a moment, "and we all bunched together, I felt that there was somebody in there fighting on my side. Pretty soon I heard a voice in my ear, it said: 'Keep on your pins as long as you can: these dogs'll trample you if they get you down.' I said, 'Is that you, Smith?' and he laughed and said, 'Still on my studies.' Then somebody hit me over the head with something, and I went down and he went with me. He had one arm around me, I remember. I've been thinking, ever since I could think at all, that they might—might have finished him. I believe he saved my life, Smith did."
"Well—bully for him!" said Peter slowly, much impressed. "What on earth struck him to do that, do you suppose? Well, well! I'll certainly look that old boy up in New York and shake him by the hand."
There was a considerable silence. At just the moment when Varney was about to put another question, Peter opened his mouth and answered it.
"However," he said, an irrepressible note of irritation creeping into his honest voice, "even that was not the strangest thing that happened that night. Not by a long shot."
Varney's gaze fixed with sudden interest. "Higginson? You don't mean to say that he turned up?"
"I do. And got away with it again—confound his soul!"
"What happened? Any more dirty work? Did anything get into the papers?"
"No—oh, no! You've got that sized up wrong, Larry. He's no yellow journalist or anything like that. He's only the slickest underground worker this town ever saw—with his confounded apologetic, worried-looking mask of a face. As for more dirty work—well, I guess the bloodshed the other night scared him up so—"
"But go on and tell me! Where'd you see him? What did you say and—"
"Sitting in our front parlor, if you please, like a dear old friend of the family."