"The sneak!" thought Peter. "I'll just drop him a quiet hint to butt out before he gets hurt." But his "head-usher" due to vanish back to New York by the ten-forty-five claimed him just then for a business talk, and when Peter had time to think of Mr. Higginson again, he found that the man had disappeared. CHAPTER X THE EDITOR OF THE GAZETTE PLAYS A CARD FROM HIS SLEEVE Varney slept badly. The night was long, like art and the lanes that have no turning; and interludes punctuated it, now and again, when he lay wide-eyed in his bunk, staring into the darkness. At these times without exception, he thought how, early in the morning, he would climb the hill to the white house, blandly proffering letters to show that he was no cad, no cur, but Laurence Varney, whom ladies need not flee from as from the plague; suavely putting Uncle Elbert's daughter so utterly in the wrong that he himself would grow merciful towards her abashment, and sorry. He fell asleep, woke again, rehearsed once more what he would say to her. At last he saw the dawn break along the horizon and the gray of a new day meet and mingle with the receding darkness. It was Wednesday. To-morrow would be Thursday, and he could go away, his business done. The prospect was rich recompense for everything. It came to him, suddenly and for the first time, that he hated his mission in Hunston with a disheartening and sickening hatred. And formulating this thought, polishing it to aphorism and sharpening it to epigram, he slumbered and slept for the last time that night. But on the heels of the morning came Peter, bursting in half-dressed, a newspaper flaunting in his hand, an unfastened suspender flapping behind him like a pennant on a clubhouse. "Oh, you're awake, are you?" said he, looking very keen and wide-awake himself. "Good! You'd hardly want to be dead to the world while this kind of thing is going on." Varney, on an elbow, sleepily surprised at this vehemence, said: "What's up?" "The jig!" cried Peter succinctly. "At least it looks that way. It's that rascal Smith." He sat down on the edge of Varney's bunk, the folded newspaper in his hand, and continued: "I ran out before I was dressed to look at this contemptible _Gazette_, because I wanted to see how they handled the meeting last night. But the minute I picked it up, I saw this, and--well, by George! Look at it!" He whipped open the _Gazette_ with a movement which all but shredded it and thrust it into Varney's hand. Varney sat up in bed and smoothed it out upon the coverlet.