"Satan reproving sin! Fudge! Free yourself once for all, my dear sir, that I'm starring in The Prisoner on the Yacht for the next three days, or anything of that sort."
"Well, if you will go," said Peter, reluctantly, "here's a reserved seat ticket—a peacherine, right up at the front."
"Great! Count on me to lead the applause."
Peter rose. His engrossed brow advertised the fact that his thought had already flown back to his own private maelstrom of new concerns.
"If Hare gets his chance to-night," he meditated out loud, "you can rely on him to make the most of it. He'll make good; he's a man, sound in wind and limb, head and heart. I do wish, though, he wasn't so—somehow innocent—so easy—so confoundedly affable and handshaking with everybody that comes along. There's a sneaky-looking stranger at the hotel—rubber-heeled fellow named Higginson, with one of these black felt hats pulled down over his eyes like a stage villain—that Hare never laid eyes on till to-day. For all he knows the man may be an agent of Ryan's, a hired spy imported to—By Jove! That's just what he is, I'll bet!" he cried suddenly; and after a frowning pause, hurried warmly on: "Don't you remember last night, just after we hit the town, I said there was a man following us—sneaked up the alley when he saw me looking at him?"
"I believe I do, Peter. But the fact is that I met so many exciting people last night—"
"It's the same man—it was Higginson!" said Peter positively. "I'm sure of it! I didn't get a look at his face last night, but it's the same hat, same figure—everything. I'll bet anything he's on Ryan's payroll; and there's little Hare hobnobbing with him as friendly as though they'd been classmates at college! That kind of free-for-all geniality doesn't go, you know! A reformer in a rotten town like this," said Peter vehemently "would do well to cultivate a profound distrust of strangers."
Varney burst out laughing.
"You yourself have known Hare from the cradle, I believe?"
"I'm different," said Peter without a smile. "Well! I must move. Now let's see—that lunch. What time shall I ask Hare and Mrs. Marne for?"