'You are in an ingenious error, Mr. Wogan; but Mr. Johnson and I have important business together in the town, and we must bid you farewell. Pray allow that dripping gentleman to land and go to bed.' 'But I cannot take him with me, and it is purely inconvenient to let him follow me, for the precise reason that he would not follow me at all, but my friend Mr. Johnson. I am like my countryman who caught a Tartar in the Muscovite wars. To be sure, I might tie him to a tree with his garters. Come out, Mr. Scrope, and be tied to a tree!' 'No, no,' said the Colonel; 'your friend will die of a cold.' 'Then what am I to be doing?' asked Wogan. 'He is a very curious gentleman.' 'I must leave that for you and your friend to determine,' said Colonel Montague. He turned to Kelly. 'In ten minutes,' said he, moving off. 'In ten minutes, Corydon,' said Kelly, and Wogan thought he heard the Colonel mutter, 'Oh, damnation!' It was all Greek to Wogan, and Kelly seemed in no mind to translate the Greek for his baser comprehension. 'Be off, Nick,' said he. 'I have ten minutes to wait here, and for ten minutes Mr. Scrope shall stand in the pond. You have that much law. It is time enough for your long legs.' 'And do you think I am leaving Mr. Scrope to follow you while I go quietly to bed?' asked Wogan, who was in truth hurt by the proposal. 'No. I shall take him with me. It is the best plan after all.' 'It will not matter, I think, whether he follows me or no; and, Nick, as to going to bed, I hope it will not be on this side of the Channel. Truth, I should be blaming you as it is for your delay, but I have no heart to it.' He had dropped into the Irish accent, a thing very rare with him. 'For the world topples about me to-night, and the sight of a friend is very pleasant to me. There! It is all I had to say to you. Good-night. Good-bye.' He clapped his hand on Wogan's shoulder and then sat himself down on the grass. If Mr. Scrope had had his wits about him, he might have chosen this occasion to creep out of the water, for Wogan was paying little heed to him. 'George,' said he, 'it seems the game has gone against you. But I have the simplest plan imaginable to put matters straight. What if you give me the key to that pretty despatch-box? You see if I go to your lodging and am taken--' 'No!' cried Kelly. 'But yes,' said Wogan, seating himself on the grass beside Kelly. 'If I am taken, why, it's just Nick Wogan that's taken, and no one but Nick Wogan is a penny the worse. But if you go and are taken--well, there's the Doctor's daughter.' Kelly would not listen to reason. It was not, he said, a mere matter of slipping into the house and burning the cyphers. But a man must pay for his own shortcomings, and the whole aspect of affairs had changed. And then he fell to thanking Wogan, which thanks Wogan cut short; and so they sat in the moonlight like a couple of owls, only they did not talk.