Anyhow, there it was; and Jack stood beside it busy with something he was laying out on the flat desk-top. It looked like some sort of jigsaw puzzle that he was piecing together very carefully, very-- what's the word?--meticulously. He had a small heap of oddments on his left, and a silk handkerchief in his right hand. His game was, he picked out an oddment from the heap, polished it, fitted it more or less into the silly puzzle, and stepped back to eye it. He looked up, annoyed-like, as if we were breaking in on a delicate experiment. "Drop that, Foe!" Sir Elkin commanded, sharp and harsh, but with a human tremble in his voice. His nails clawed into my arm. "It's his dog," he whispered me, "or what's left. The poor brute held the door, they say . . . sprang at their throats right and left . . . till someone brained him and they threw his carcass into the fire. . . . Drop it, Foe--that's a good fellow!" Jack stayed himself, stared at us dully, and put down the handkerchief after dusting the bench with it. "Is that you, you fellows?" he asked, with a smile playing about his mouth and twisting it. "Good of you, Roddy--though almost too late for the fun! Jimmy, too? . . . They've made a bit of a mess here, eh? . . . Ah, and there's Mr. Farrell! Will somebody introduce Mr. Farrell? . . . Good-morning, sir! We'll--we'll talk this little matter over--you and I--later." BOOK II. THE CHASE. NIGHT THE EIGHTH. VENDETTA. "My dear Roddy,--Don't come around: and for God's sake don't send Jimmy. The word is 'No sympathy, by request.' You will understand. "I shall call on you at 9 o'clock on Tuesday. Have breakfast ready, for I shall be hungry as a hunter. "Don't fash yourself, either, with fears that I am 'unhinged' by this business. I am just off to Paddington--thence for the Thames--shan't say where: but it's a backwater, where I propose to think things out. I shall have thought them out, quite definitely, by Tuesday. "I believe you keep a few bottles of the audit ale. Tell Jephson to open one for a stirrup-cup. You can invite Jimmy.-- Yours truly, J.F. "P.S.--I don't know, and can't guess, how you came to tumble in so promptly on the heels of that riot. But you have always been a cherub sitting up aloft and keeping watch over-- Poor Jack. "P.P.S.--This by Special Messenger. . . . Forgive my breaking away and leaving you all so impolitely. Nothing would do, just then, but to escape and be alone.-- Until Tuesday."