Nevertheless, the matter was difficult. It was well-nigh impossible to determine the conditions under which Snarley would be at his best, and, whatever arrangements were made, his animal shyness might spoil them all. To take him by surprise was known to be dangerous; and we had already found to our cost that the attempt to deceive him by the pretence of an accidental meeting was pretty certain to end in disaster. How Mrs. Abel succeeded in bringing the thing off I don't know. There may have been bribery and corruption (for Snarley's character had not been formed from the fashion-books of any known order of mystics), and, though I saw nothing to suggest this method, I know nothing to exclude it--as a working hypothesis. But be that as it may, the arrangement was made that on a certain Wednesday evening Snarley was to come down to the Rectory and attend in the garden for the coming of Chandrapal. I had already learnt to regard Mrs. Abel as a worker of miracles to whom few things were impossible; but this conquest of Snarley's reluctance to be interviewed, and in a manner so exceptional, has always impressed me as one of her greatest achievements. If the reader had known the old shepherd only in his untransfigured state--when, in his own phrase, he was "stuck in his skin"--I venture to say he would as soon have thought of asking a grisly bear to afternoon tea in his drawing-room as of inviting Snarley Bob to meet an Indian sage in a rectory garden. But the arrangement was made--whether by the aid of Beelzebub or the attractions of British gold, no man will ever know. Nothing in connection with Snarley had ever interested me so much as the possible outcome of this strange interview; so that, when informed of what was going to happen, I sent a telegram to Mrs. Abel asking permission to be on the spot--not, of course, as a witness of the interview but as a guest in the house. The reply was favourable, and on Tuesday afternoon I was at Deadborough.