"To tell the truth, my dear Donovan, since I left your hospitable board I have been deeply perplexed over some important questions of human conduct. Are you interested in human types? Have you ever noticed the man who summons all porters and waiters by the pleasing name of George? The name in itself is respectable enough; nor is its generic use pernicious--a matter of taste only. But the same man may be identified otherwise by his proneness to consume the cabinet pudding, the chocolate ice-cream and the fruit in season from the chastening American bill of fare, after partaking impartially of the preliminary fish, flesh and fowl. He is confidential with hotel clerks, affectionate with chambermaids and all telephone girls are Nellie to him. Types, my dear Donovan--" "That's enough! I want to know what you are doing!" and in my anger I shook him by the shoulders. "Well, if you must have it, after I started to the village I changed my mind about going, and I was anxious to see whether Holbrook was really here; so I got a launch and came over. I stopped at the island but saw no one there, and I came up the creek until I grounded; then I struck inland, looking for the road. It might save us both embarrassment, Irishman, if we give notice of each other's intentions, particularly at night. I hung about, thinking you might appear, and--" "You are a poor liar, Buttons. You didn't come here alone!"--and I drove my weary wits hard in an effort to account for his unexpected appearance. "All is lost; I am discovered," he mocked. He had himself freed my horse; I now took the rein and refastened it to the tree. "Well, inexplicable Donovan!" I laughed, pleased to find that my delay annoyed him. I was confident that he was not abroad at this hour for nothing, and it again occurred to me that we were on different sides of the matter. My weariness fell from me like a cloak, as the events of the past hour flashed fresh in my mind. "Now," I said, dropping the rein and patting the horse's nose for a moment, "you may go with me or you may sit here; but if you would avoid trouble don't try to interfere with me." I did not doubt that he had been sent to watch me; and his immediate purpose seemed to be to detain me. "I had hoped you would sit down and talk over the Monroe Doctrine, or the partition of Africa, or something equally interesting," he remarked. "You disappoint me, my dear benefactor." "And you make me very tired at the end of a tiresome day, Gillespie. Please continue to watch my horse; I'm off." He kept at my elbow, as I expected he would, babbling away with his usual volubility in an effort, now frank enough, to hold me back; but I ignored his talk and plunged on through the wood toward the creek. Henry Holbrook must, I argued, have had time enough to get out of the creek and back to the island; but what mischief Gillespie was furthering in his behalf I could not imagine.