"If one of you wasn't Endecott Linden," said Mr. Motley throwing the end of his cigar overboard, "I should think you had made acquaintance on a highway robbery."
"Instead of which, it was in the peaceful town of Pattaquasset," said
Mr. Linden.
"Permit me to request the reason of Mr. Motley's extraordinary guess," said the doctor.
"So natural to say where you've met a man—if there's no reason against it," said the other coolly. "But you don't say it was in Pattaquasset, doctor? Were you ever there?"
"Depends entirely on the decision of certain questions in metaphysics,"—said the doctor. "As for instance, whether anything that is, is—and the matter of personal identity, which you know is doubtful. I know the appearance of the place, Motley."
"Are there any pretty girls there?" said Mr. Motley, carelessly, but keeping his eye rather on Mr. Linden than the doctor.
"Mr. Linden can answer better than I," said Dr. Harrison, whose eye also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of himself. "There are none there that could not answer any question about Mr. Linden."—
"By the help of a powerful imagination," said the person spoken of. Mr.
Motley looked from one to the other.
"I don't know what to make of either of you," he said. "Why doctor, Endecott Linden is a—a mere—I don't like to call him hard names, and I can't call him soft ones! However—to be sure—the cat may look at the king, even if his majesty won't return the compliment. Well—you and I were never thought hard-hearted, so I'll tell you my story. Did it ever happen—or seem to happen, doctor—that you, seeming to be in Pattaquasset, went—not to church—but along the road therefrom? Preferring the exit to the entrance—as you and I too often do?"
"It has seemed to happen to me,"—said Dr. Harrison, as if mechanically.