My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.
"Oh, no; his wife will keep it open," replied the girl. "Look! you can see papa now. He's digging."
"Where?" I blurted out.
I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou'wester, and hip-boots of rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his eyes with a sunburnt hand.
"Papa, dear," said Miss Holroyd, "here is Jack's friend, whom you bailed out of Mazas."
The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification. The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
When he said this he looked at his spade. It was clear that he considered me a nuisance and wished to go on with his digging.
"I suppose," he said, "you are still writing?"
"A little," I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output had rivaled that of "The Duchess"—in quantity, I mean.
"I seldom read—fiction," he said, looking restlessly at the hole in the ground.