ckle to, old
horse. We are at a critical stage. On our work now depends the success
of the speculation. Look at those cocks. They're always fighting.
Fling a stone at them. What's the matter with you? Can't get the novel
off your chest, what? You take my tip, and give your mind a rest.
Nothing like manual labor for clearing the brain. All the doctors say
so. Those coops ought to be painted to-day or to-morrow. Mind you, I
think old Derrick would be all right if one persevered--"

"And didn't call him a fat old buffer, and contradict everything he
said and spoil all his stories by breaking in with chestnuts of your
own in the middle," I interrupted with bitterness.

"Oh, rot, old boy! He didn't mind being called a fat old buffer. You
keep harping on that. A man likes one to be chatty with him. What was
the matter with old Derrick was a touch of liver. You should have
stopped him taking that cheese. I say, old man, just fling another
stone at those cocks, will you? They'll eat one another."

I had hoped, fearing the while that there was not much chance of such
a thing happening, that the professor might get over his feeling of
injury during the night, and be as friendly as ever next day. But he
was evidently a man who had no objection whatever to letting the sun
go down upon his wrath, for, when I met him on the beach the
following morning, he cut me in the most uncompromising fashion.

Phyllis was with him at the time, and also another girl who was, I
supposed from the strong likeness between them, her sister. She had
the same soft mass of brown hair. But to me she appeared almost
commonplace in comparison.

It is never pleasant to be cut dead. It produces the same sort of
feeling as is experienced when one treads on nothing where one
imagined a stair to be. In the present instance the pang was mitigated
to a certain extent--not largely--by the fact that Phyllis looked at
me. She did not move her head, and I could not have declared
positively that she moved her eyes; but nevertheless she certainly
looked at me. It was something. She seemed to say that duty compelled
her to follow her father's lead, and that the act must not be taken as
evidence of any personal animus.

That, at least, was how I read off the message.

Two days later I met Mr. Chase in the village.

"Halloo! so you're back," I said.

"You've discovered my secret," said he. "Will you have a cigar or a
cocoanut?"

There was a pause.

"Trouble,