worst (as you believe) you banish to an island, treating
them as the old Romans treated theirs. Now, I'm a traveller; and
where do you suppose I spent this day month?"

I could not give a guess.

"Why, on the island of Elba. I'm curious, you know, especially in
the matter of criminals, so I came--oh, a tremendous way--to have a
look at Napoleon Bonaparte, there. Now I'll tell you another thing,
he's going to escape in a month or two, when his plans are ready.
I had that from his own lips; and, what's more, I heard it again in
Paris a week later. From Paris I came across to London, and from
London down to Plymouth, and from Plymouth I was to have travelled
straight to Falmouth, to take my passage home, when I heard of what
had happened here, and that the house was for sale. So I stopped to
have a look at it; for I am curious, I tell you."

He went on to prove his curiosity by asking me a score of questions
about myself: my age, my choice of a profession, my relatives (I told
him I had none), and my schooling. He drew me (I cannot remember
how) into a description of Plinny, and agreed with me that she must
be a woman in a thousand; asked where she lived at present, and
regretted--pulling out his watch--that he had not time to make her
acquaintance. Oddly enough, I felt when he said it that this was no
idle speech, but that only time prevented him from walking up the
hill and paying his respects. I felt also, the longer we talked, I
will not say a fear of him, for his manner was too urbane to permit
it, but an increasing respect. Crazed he might be, as his questions
were disconnected and now and again bewildering, as when he asked if
my father had travelled much abroad, and again it I really preferred
to remain idle at home instead of returning to finish my education
with Mr. Stimcoe; but his manner of asking compelled an answer.
I could not tell myself if I liked or disliked the man, he differed
so entirely from any one I had ever seen in my life. His questions
were intimate, yet without offence. I answered them all, with a
sense of talking to some one either immensely old or divided from me
by hundreds of miles.

In the midst of our talk, and while he was pressing me with questions
about Mr. and Mrs. Stimcoe, he suddenly lifted his head, and stood
listening.

"Hallo!" said he. "Here's the coach!"

I had heard nothing, though my ears are pretty sharp. But sure
enough, though not until a couple of minu