He went on toward his waiting gig feeling vaguely displeased with the results of his half-hour ashore, and deciding that for the future it would be best to give the town a wide berth. The privacy of the yacht better suited his mission than Main Street, Hunston. However, the end was not yet. He had not reached the landing before a thought came to him which stopped him in his tracks.
CHAPTER V
INTRODUCES MARY CARSTAIRS AND ANOTHER
Clearly he must see Peter, at once, before that impetuous enthusiast had had time to involve himself in anything, and tell him bluntly that he must leave the affairs of Hunston alone until their own delicate business had been safely disposed of.
In such a matter as this it was not safe to take chances. Varney had a curious feeling that young Mr. Smith's melodramatic warnings had been offered in a spirit of friendliness, rather than of hostility. Nevertheless, the eccentric young man had unmistakably threatened them. While Varney had been more interested by the man, personally, than by his whimsical menaces, the editor's conversation could certainly not be called reassuring. Smith owned a corrupt newspaper; he was a clever man and, by his own confession, an unscrupulous one, bought body and soul by the local freebooters; and if he thought the headlong intruder Maginnis important enough to warrant it, there were presumably no lengths to which he would not go to make the town uncomfortable for him, to the probable prejudice of their mission. Clearly, here was a risk which he, as Mr. Carstairs's emissary, had no right to incur. The Cypriani was in no position to stand the fire of vindictive yellow journalism. Besides, there was the complicating matter of his own curious resemblance to somebody whom, it seemed, Hunston knew, and not too favorably.
Considerably annoyed, Varney turned his face back toward the town. To avoid more publicity, he turned off the main thoroughfare to a narrow street which paralleled it, and, walking rapidly, came in five minutes to the street where Peter and the little candidate had left him. This street came as a surprise to him: Hunston's best "residence section" beyond doubt. It was really pretty, spaciously wide and flanked by handsome old trees. Houses rose at increasingly long intervals as one got away from the town; and they were for the most part charming-looking houses, set in large lawns and veiled from public scrutiny by much fine foliage.
Varney cast about for somebody who would give him his bearings, and had not far to look.
Puffing stolidly on the butt of an alleged cigar, into which he had stuck a sharpened match as a visible means of support, a boy who was probably not so old as he looked sat upon the curbstone at the corner, and claimed the world for his cuspidor. He was an ill-favored runt of a boy, with a sedate manner and a face somewhat resembling a hickory-nut.
Varney, approaching, asked him where Mr. Hare lived. Without turning around, or desisting an instant from the tending of his cigar (which, indeed, threatened a decease at any moment), the boy replied:
"Acrost an' down, one half a block. Little yaller house wit' green blinds and ornings. Yer could n't miss it. Yer party left dere ten minutes ago, dough."