Others, however, supported the little man’s diagnosis, and there was some feeling against Sailor Smith who refused to make the vote unanimous. “No, sir,” he persisted sturdily. “That dude way of talkin’ of his has got somethin’ back of it, _I’ll_ bet. He seen there was somethin’ queer about thet rope, an’ he ast me about the knots, right off. _He_ knows enough not to spit to wind’ard, an’ don’t you forgit it! Wouldn’t surprise me none if he was p’intin’ pretty nigh as clus up into the wind as Len Schlager.” Possibly the one supporter of the absent would have wavered in his loyalty had he seen the trove that Professor Chester Kent had carried unostentatiously from the beach, in his pocket, after picking it from the grating. It was the fuzzy cocoon of a small and quite unimportant insect. Perhaps the admiring Mr. Smith might even have come around to the majority opinion regarding Professor Kent’s intellectual futility, could he have observed the absorbed interest with which the Washington scientist, seated on a boulder, opened up the cocoon, pricked it until the impotent inmate wriggled in protest, and then, casting it aside to perish, threw himself on his back and whistled the whole of Chopin’s _Funeral March_, mostly off the key. CHAPTER II—PROFESSOR KENT MAKES A CALL Between the roadway and the broad front lawn of the Nook a four-foot, rough stone wall interposes. Looking up from his painting, Francis Sedgwick beheld, in the glare of the afternoon sun, a spare figure rise alertly upon the wall, descend to the road, and rise again. He stepped to the open window and watched a curious progress. A scrubby-bearded man, clad in serviceable khaki, was performing a stunt, with the wall as a basis. He was walking from east to west quite fast, and every third pace stepping upon the wall; stepping, Sedgwick duly noted, not jumping, the change of level being made without visible effort. Now, Sedgwick himself was distinctly long of leg and limber, but he realized that he would be wholly incapable of duplicating the stranger’s gracefully accomplished feat without violent and clumsy exertion. Consequently, he was interested. Leaning out of the window, he called: “Hello, there!” “Good afternoon,” said the stranger, in a quiet cultivated voice. “Would you mind telling me what you are doing on my wall.” “Not in the least,” replied the bearded man, rising buoyantly into full view, and subsiding again with the rhythm of a wave. “Well, what _are_ you doing?” “Taking a little exercise.” By this time, having reached the end of the wall, he turned and came back, making the step with his right leg instead of his left. Sedgwick hurried down-stairs and out into the roadway. The stranger continued his performance silently. At closer inspection it appealed to the artist as even more mysterious both in purport and execution than it had looked at a distance. “Do you do that often?” he asked presently.