I could have wished, during the next few days, that Mr. Harry Hawk's
attitude toward myself had not been so unctuously confidential and
mysterious. It was unnecessary, in my opinion, for him to grin
meaningly whenever he met me in the street. His sly wink when we
passed each other on the Cob struck me as in indifferent taste. The
thing had been definitely arranged (half down and half when it was
over), and there was no need for any cloak and dark-lantern effects. I
objected strongly to being treated as the villain of a melodrama. I
was merely an ordinary well-meaning man, forced by circumstances into
doing the work of Providence. Mr. Hawk's demeanor seemed to say:
"We are two reckless scoundrels, but bless you, _I_ won't give away
your guilty secret."
The climax came one morning as I was going along the street toward the
beach. I was passing a dark doorway, when out shimmered Mr. Hawk as if
he had been a specter instead of the most substantial man within a
radius of ten miles.
"St!" he whispered.
"Now look here, Hawk," I said wrathfully, for the start he had given
me had made me bite my tongue, "this has got to stop. I refuse to be
haunted in this way. What is it now?"
"Mr. Derrick goes out this morning, zur."
"Thank goodness for that," I said. "Get it over this morning, then,
without fail. I couldn't stand another day of this."
I went on to the Cob, where I sat down. I was excited. Deeds of great
import must shortly be done. I felt a little nervous. It would never
do to bungle the thing. Suppose by some accident I were to drown the
professor, or suppose that, after all, he contented himself with a
mere formal expression of thanks and refused to let bygones be
bygones. These things did not bear thinking of.