“I have it now,” he said, pleased as a child over the finding of a long-sought-for plaything. “His waistcoat was gray, Captain Dick; and he wore a black stock--aye, it was black, sure enough. But”--smiting fist into palm with a mighty thwack to make the climax--“the thing I noticed hardest was his watch-fob; a bunch of seals hanging at the end of a leather thong, and he twiddles them, so”--suiting the action to the word--“all the time as he talks or walks. Never tell me, Captain, that I haven’t got him down to the very parting of the hair for you.” “Oh, you have,” I said ironically; “indeed you have. I could doubtless recognize Mr. James Askew in the dark, and with my eyes shut; or that way as well as any other. But the twiddling of the watch-fob seals may do. Now to the work. When you’ve succeeded--or failed--come back here and put a corner of your neckerchief in the window for a signal; right-hand if you’ve hit the mark, left-hand if you’ve missed.” “You’ll be within call?” he asked, as I was unbarring the door. “I shall be patrolling before Sir Henry Clinton’s door, ready to nip Mr. James Askew if he turns up on my beat--always providing that he twiddles his watch-seals at the proper instant.” “One more word,” said the sergeant, when my hand was on the latch. “Major Lee’s order is to drop the hitch-rope and run for it. You’ve said nothing as to that, yet, Captain Dick.” “And I say nothing now, save that Major Lee is not my commanding officer. He is yours, however--which may make a difference in your case. Does it?” “No,” he said shrewdly; and we went out through the tap-room one at a time, and each to his own separate pool to fish for James Askew. XIII HOW A FISH WAS HOOKED AND LOST THE talk in my tavern room with Champe had used up so much time that it was midday and beyond when I joined the group of orderlies and unattached officers lounging before Sir Henry’s door, and had a welcome in strict accordance with the freezing December weather and the uniform I was wearing--cool and contemptuous. Now this was grateful to me, in a way, and in another way it made me spitefully savage. It was comforting to know that our nobler enemies detested Arnold’s treachery, carrying their aversion to the extent of despising any one who wore his regimental colors. But, on the other hand, the slight had to pass through me on its way to hit the mark, and I was never good at paying penalties for another’s sins. So, when there were covert sneers and back-turnings enough to make a man sick, I began to strut and sneer in self-defense, twitting a lieutenant of Hetheridge’s whose line was the first to break at Monmouth, and a captain of Knyphausen’s whose Hessian devils had cut a troop of our horse to pieces at Tappan after it had surrendered.