"I haven't told you yet," said he, after silencing Robert's objections, "what I did with my morning. Well, I looked round and got the general hang of the village. More, I followed our mysterious friend--let's call him Billy,--and from a distance saw him enter The Quiet House. (Queer place that, by the way. Surrounded by a brick wall ten feet high,--couldn't get a glimpse inside except through a gate.) The landlord tells me that he hasn't booked a bed here, so it looks either as if he meant to leave Shereling or stay at The Quiet House." "A good job, too," commented Robert. "It wouldn't do for him to see me. Of course I should be recognized at once, and that would make him suspicious." "Quite so," agreed Tony. "If he hung about here you'd have to stay in bed all day,--rather a depressing prospect when fun is promised. But if I were you I'd give a false name to the landlord. If Billy heard of Mr. Hedderwick it would make him think of things." Robert had an instinctive repugnance to the plan. In some obscure way it savored of criminality, and the shackles of convention were still not wholly broken. But in the end Tony again triumphed, and the blameless Hedderwick was dubbed Bangs. He did not particularly care for the choice; but as Tony said he looked the perfect essential Bangs and that any other name would be unthinkable, Robert gave way. "Oh, and I saw some one else," continued Tony when the point was settled. "A remarkably pretty girl. She, too, entered The Quiet House--some time after Billy. I had seen him safely in, and was waiting by the roadside when she came along. She snubbed me--quite properly,--but was kindly careless enough to drop a card. It bore the name of Miss Arkwright, who, I understand, owns The Quiet House. But somehow I don't feel sure that the card is hers." "Why?" "Dunno," said Tony with a dissatisfied air. "I haven't any reasonable evidence. A kind of intuition, I suppose, more than anything else. Somehow she doesn't _look_ an Arkwright,--she hasn't got an Arkwright personality. Now, you simply exude Bangs at every pore,--_you're_ all right." "What was she like?" "Bangs being a respectable married man, mere good looks have no interest for him." ("Oh, but they have!" interrupted Robert with a naif eagerness.) "Well, they oughtn't to, then. As a matter of fact, she was deucedly pretty, and--good lord!"