Robert shrank back into the shadow, thinking:
"So he's got back to town, that scamp! Now I wonder what he's up to in that disguise? But he can't fool me! I know his voice and his square shoulders too well. I wish I could do him up, the grand villain, for playing me that low trick!"
On the alert for something on which to base a plan of retaliation, he followed every word and movement, and, to his amazement, when Standish got into the elegant sleigh, he heard him give the address of Geraldine, where he had carried Hawthorne's note.
Now, Robert had left the hospital, and obtained a place with his cousin, the keeper of the livery stable, and a wild thought came into his mind.
"That fellow's up to some mischief, or he wouldn't be in that rig—whiskers and spectacles! Wonder if that girl's got back, anyway? S'pose I go and tell the fireman about it, and see if he can make anything out of this strange lark?"
Turning to his cousin, who was very fond of the quick-witted youth, he said, roguishly:
"Seems like that fellow's going to take his best girl for a jolly sleigh-ride. Puts me in mind to take mine, too. Can't I get off for an hour and have a little one-horse sleigh?"
"Who's to pay for it, Impudence?"
"I am, of course! You can keep my week's salary for it. Who minds a little extravagance like that for his best girl, I'd like to know?" and ten minutes later he was driving in style to the Ludlow street engine-house.
"Mr. Hawthorne in the house?" he hallooed to a fireman in front.