y
concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the
note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight a face and so
candid an air that he could no longer suspect her of being concerned in
any trick against him, and so eased his mind of any such suspicion. The
bearer of the note, she informed him, was a tall, lean man, with a red
neckerchief tied around his neck and with copper buckles to his shoes,
and he had the appearance of a sailor-man, having a great queue of red
hair hanging down his back. But, Lord! what was such a description as
that in a busy seaport town full of scores of men to fit such a
likeness? Accordingly, our hero put the note away into his wallet,
determining to show it to his good friend Mr. Greenfield that evening,
and to ask his advice upon it.

This he did, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his: to wit,
that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the
matter of the letter was all nothing but smoke.

III

Nevertheless, though Barnaby was thus confirmed in his opinion as to
the nature of the communication he had received, he yet determined in
his own mind that he would see the business through to the end and so
be at Pratt's Ordinary, as the note demanded, upon the day and at the
time appointed therein.

Pratt's Ordinary was at that time a very fine and famous place of its
sort, with good tobacco and the best rum in the West Indies, and had a
garden behind it that, sloping down to the harbor front, was planted
pretty thick with palms and ferns, grouped into clusters with flowers
and plants. Here were a number of tables, some in little grottos, like
our Vauxhall in New York, with red and blue and white paper lanterns
hung among the foliage. Thither gentlemen and ladies used sometimes to
go of an evening to sit and drink lime-juice and sugar and water (and
sometimes a taste of something stronger), and to look out across the
water at the shipping and so to enjoy the cool of the day.

Thither, accordingly, our hero went a little before the time appointed
in the note, and, passing directly through the Ordinary and to the
garden beyond, chose a table at the lower end and close to the water's
edge, where he could not readily be seen by any one coming into the
place, and yet where he could easily view whoever should approach.
Then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed
himself to watch for the arrival of those witty fellows whom