As my horse whinnied and I turned into the wood a man walked boldly toward me.
"My dear Donovan, I have been consoling your horse during your absence. It's a sad habit we have fallen into of wandering about at night. I liked your dinner, but you were rather too anxious to get rid of me. I came by boat myself!"
Gillespie knocked the ashes from his pipe and thrust it into his pocket. I was in no frame of mind for talk with him, a fact which he seemed to surmise.
"It's late, for a fact," he continued; "and we both ought to be in bed; but our various affairs require diligence."
"What are you doing over here?" I demanded. I was too weary and too perplexed for his nonsense, and in no mood for confidences. I needed time for reflection and I had no intention of seeking or of imparting information at this juncture.
"Well, to tell the truth—"
"You'd better!"
"To tell the truth, my dear Donovan, since I left your hospitable board I have been deeply perplexed over some important questions of human conduct. Are you interested in human types? Have you ever noticed the man who summons all porters and waiters by the pleasing name of George? The name in itself is respectable enough; nor is its generic use pernicious—a matter of taste only. But the same man may be identified otherwise by his proneness to consume the cabinet pudding, the chocolate ice-cream and the fruit in season from the chastening American bill of fare, after partaking impartially of the preliminary fish, flesh and fowl. He is confidential with hotel clerks, affectionate with chambermaids and all telephone girls are Nellie to him. Types, my dear Donovan—"
"That's enough! I want to know what you are doing!" and in my anger I shook him by the shoulders.
"Well, if you must have it, after I started to the village I changed my mind about going, and I was anxious to see whether Holbrook was really here; so I got a launch and came over. I stopped at the island but saw no one there, and I came up the creek until I grounded; then I struck inland, looking for the road. It might save us both embarrassment, Irishman, if we give notice of each other's intentions, particularly at night. I hung about, thinking you might appear, and—"