"Yes; but he must not know that I am going to-night, and with Henry Stuart."
"Why not?"
"Ah! that's the point. Mystery! Alice—mystery! What a world of mystery this is!" observed the precocious Corrie, shaking his head with profound solemnity. "I've been involved (I think that's the word), rolled up, drowned, and buried in mystery for more than three weeks, and I'm beginning to fear that I'll never again git into the unmysteriously happy state in which I lived before this abominable man-of-war came to the island. No, Alice: I dare not say anything more on that point, even to you just now. But won't I give it you all in my first letter? and won't you open your eyes until they look like two blue saucers?"
Further conversation between the friends was interrupted at this point by the inrushing of Toozle, followed up by Poopy, and a short time after, by Mr. Mason, who took Alice away with him, and left poor Corrie disconsolate.
While this was going on, John Bumpus was fulfilling his mission to Ole Thorwald.
He found that obstinate individual in his own parlor, deep in the investigation of the state of his books of business, which had been allowed to fall into arrears during his absence.
"Come in, Bumpus. So I hear you were half-hanged when we were away."
Ole wheeled round on his stool, and hooked his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, as he said this, leaned his back against his desk, and regarded the seaman with a facetious look.
"Half-hanged, indeed!" said Bumpus, indignantly. "I was more than half—three-quarters, at least. Why, the worst of it's over w'en the rope's round your neck."
"That is a matter which you can't speak to, John Bumpus, seeing that you've never gone beyond the putting of the rope round your neck."