"Now the one who spoke to you to-night—" said Mr. Anderson, as if carrying on a train of thought of his own.
"Spoke to me, sir? I said naught concerning that," answered the young man, hastily.
"If he had knowledge who you were—"
"But he mistook me," again interrupted William. "What are you driving at? To whom do you refer?"
"His name has slipped me," replied the schoolmaster. "You may be able to jog my memory. I saw you talking with him a short while ago. I can find out easily."
"No; listen," said William. And then he told of his meeting with Abel Norton, and the conversation in the doorway, omitting, however, entirely the reference to the boat.
When he had finished Mr. Anderson replied. "This is interesting news to me," he said; "but it was not to this strange person that I referred. It was to your neighbor at the table, Captain—what's his name?—over there, who had been talking to you before you left. So that was an adventure on the street? What are you going to do?"
William saw that he had been trapped into telling what he had better, perhaps, have kept quiet. "I have been ordered to the forces at the north," he said, confused.
"Indeed?" replied Schoolmaster Anderson. "Success to you. I judged that you were not a kind to idle in tavern parlors, or your regiment one to grow stale in barracks."
"But I am going alone," said William, entrapped again.