rth listening to.

"He never wilted once, until I got up to go and drank what
remained of my whisky-and-seltzer 'to our next merry meeting.'
He followed me out to the hotel doorway to say Good night.
We did not shake hands.

"There are indications that he will travel back north to-night.
He has left for Pau, to play golf. At Dax this evening--mark my
words--a solitary traveller may be observed furtively stealing
on board the night express for Paris. He will be observed: but
he won't be a solitary traveller.

"Your lawyer's letter--as I started by remarking--has arrived
opportunely. If Farrell, as I suspect, intends to go through to
London, I may reach you almost as soon as this letter, and shall
add a piece of my mind for a postscript.--Yours,"

"J. F."

I slept the night at Biarritz and started back early next morning for
London.

I found Jimmy recumbent in what he called his Young Oxford Student's
Reading Chair, alone with the racing news in the evening papers.

"Hallo!" he greeted me. "I rather expected you just now. Let's go
and dine somewhere."

"Has Jack turned up here?" I asked.

"'Course he has: Farrell too--Farrell first by a short head.
Rather a good idea, my stopping at home to keep goal. Hard lines on
you, though; all that journey for nothing. . . . If it's any
consolation, the Professor was much affected when I told him of all
the trouble you were taking, out of pure friendship, to fit him with
a strait-waistcoat. 'Good old Roddy!' he said."

"No, he didn't," I interrupted. "And if he did, we'll cut that out.
Tell me what happened."

"He said he had posted a letter to you from Biarritz: that it ought
to have arrived by this time. I told him it hadn't, and it hasn't.
If it had, I warn you I should have opened it."

"That's all right," I said. "I extracted it from the post-box at
Biarritz, and have it here. You shall read it by and by. Go on."

"Well, in my opinion, the Professor's pulling your leg--or he and
Farrell between 'em. If either's mad, it's Farrell; or else--which
I'm inclined to suspect--Farrell's a born actor."

"Now see here," I threatened, "I've travelled some thousands of
miles: I've spent two nights in the train and one in a French
bedstead haunted by mosquitoes: I've had the beast of a crossing, and
I'm in the worst possible temper. Will you, please tell