"Do I think--Have you ever known any one who didn"t think you eccentric?"
Upon this he pondered solemnly.
"It"s so long since I"ve stopped to consider what people think of me.
One hasn"t time, you know."
"Then one is unhuman. _I_ have time."
"Of course. But you haven"t anything else to do."
As this was quite true, she naturally felt annoyed.
"Knowing as you do all the secrets of my inner life," she observed sarcastically, "of course you are in a position to judge."
Her own words recalled Carroll"s charge, and though, with the subject of them before her, it seemed ridiculously impossible, yet the spirit of mischief, ever hovering about her like an attendant sprite, descended and took possession of her speech. She a.s.sumed a severely judicial expression.
"Mr. Beetle Man, will you lay your hand upon your microscope, or whatever else scientists make oath upon, and answer fully and truly the question about to be put to you?"
"As I hope for a blessed release from this abode of lunacy, I will."
"Mr. Beetle Man, have you got an awful secret in your life?"
So sharply did he start that the heavy goggles slipped a fraction of an inch along his nose, the first time she had ever seen them in any degree misplaced. She was herself sensibly discountenanced by his perturbation.
"Why do you ask that?" he demanded.
"Natural interest in a friend," she answered lightly, but with growing wonder. "I think you"d be altogether irresistible if you were a pirate or a smuggler or a revolutionary. The romantic spirit could lurk so securely behind those gloomy soul-screens that you wear. What do you keep back of them, O dark and shrouded beetle man?"
"My eyes," he grunted.
"Basilisk eyes, I"m sure. And what behind the eyes?"
"My thoughts."
"You certainly keep them securely. No intruders allowed. But you haven"t answered my question. Have you ever murdered any one in cold blood? Or are you a married man trifling with the affections of poor little me?"
"You shall know all," he began, in the leisurely tone of one who commences a long narrative. "My parents were honest, but poor. At the age of three years and four months, a maternal uncle, who, having been a proofreader of Abyssinian dialect stories for a ladies" magazine, was considered a literary prophet, foretold that I--"
"Help! Wait! Stop!--
""Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the bellman exclaimed, And impatiently tinkled his bell."
Her companion promptly capped her verse:--
""I skip forty years," said the baker in tears,"--
"You can"t," she objected. "If you skipped half that, I don"t believe it would leave you much."
"When one is giving one"s life history by request," he began, with dignity, "interruptions--"
"It isn"t by request," she protested. "I don"t want your life history. I won"t have it! You shan"t treat an unprotected and helpless stranger so.
Besides, I"m much more interested to know how you came to be familiar with Lewis Carroll."
"Just because I"ve wasted my career on frivolous trifles like science, you needn"t think I"ve wholly neglected the true inwardness of life, as exemplified in "The Hunting of the Snark,"" he said gravely.
"Do you know"--she leaned forward, searching his face--"I believe you came out of that book yourself. ARE you a Boojum? Will you, unless I "charm you with smiles and soap,"
""Softly and silently vanish away, And never be heard of again"?"
"You"re mixed. YOU"D be the one to do that if I were a real Boojum. And you"ll be doing it soon enough, anyway," he concluded ruefully.
"So I shall, but don"t be too sure that I"ll "never be heard of again.""
He glanced up at the sun, which was edging behind a dark cloud, over the gap.
"Is your raging thirst for personal information sufficiently slaked?" he asked. "We"ve still fifteen or twenty minutes left."
"Is that all? And I haven"t yet given you the message!" She drew it from the bag and handed it to him.
"Sealed," he observed.
The girl colored painfully.
"Dad didn"t intend--You mustn"t think--" With a flash of generous wrath she tore the envelope open and held out the inclosure. "But I shouldn"t have thought you so concerned with formalities," she commented curiously.
"It isn"t that. But in some respects, possibly important, it would be better if--" He stopped, looking at her doubtfully.
"Read it," she nodded.
He ran through the brief doc.u.ment.
"Yes; it"s just as well that I should know. I"ll leave a copy."
Something in his accent made her scrutinize him.
"You"re going into danger!" she cried.
"Danger? No; I think not. Difficulty, perhaps. But I think it can be put through."
"If it were dangerous, you"d do it just the same," she said, almost accusingly.
"It would be worth some danger now to get you away from greater danger later. See here, Miss Brewster"--he rose and stood over her--"there must be no mistake or misunderstanding about this."
"Don"t gloom at me with those awful gla.s.ses," she said fretfully. "I feel as if I were being stared at by a hidden person."
He disregarded the protest.
"If I get this message through, can you guarantee that your father will take out the yacht as soon as the Dutch send word to him?"