Bechamel, tightening his chain in the Angel yard after dinner, was the first to be aware of their reunion. He saw Hoopdriver walk slowly across the gateway, his head enhaloed in cigarette smoke, and pass out of sight up the street. Incontinently a mass of cloudy uneasiness, that had been partly dispelled during the day, reappeared and concentrated rapidly into definite suspicion. He put his screw hammer into his pocket and walked through the archway into the street, to settle the business forthwith, for he prided himself on his decision. Hoopdriver was merely promenading, and they met face to face. At the sight of his adversary, something between disgust and laughter seized Mr. Hoopdriver and for a moment destroyed his animosity. “’Ere we are again!” he said, laughing insincerely in a sudden outbreak at the perversity of chance. The other man in brown stopped short in Mr. Hoopdriver’s way, staring. Then his face assumed an expression of dangerous civility. “Is it any information to you,” he said, with immense politeness, “when I remark that you are following us?” Mr. Hoopdriver, for some occult reason, resisted his characteristic impulse to apologise. He wanted to annoy the other man in brown, and a sentence that had come into his head in a previous rehearsal cropped up appropriately. “Since when,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching his breath, yet bringing the question out valiantly, nevertheless,—“since when ’ave you purchased the county of Sussex?” “May I point out,” said the other man in brown, “that I object—we object not only to your proximity to us. To be frank—you appear to be following us—with an object.” “You can always,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “turn round if you don’t like it, and go back the way you came.” “Oh-o!” said the other man in brown. “_That’s_ it! I thought as much.” “Did you?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, quite at sea, but rising pluckily to the unknown occasion. What was the man driving at? “I see,” said the other man. “I see. I half suspected—” His manner changed abruptly to a quality suspiciously friendly. “Yes—a word with you. You will, I hope, give me ten minutes.” Wonderful things were dawning on Mr. Hoopdriver. What did the other man take him for? Here at last was reality! He hesitated. Then he thought of an admirable phrase. “You ’ave some communication—” “We’ll call it a communication,” said the other man. “I can spare you the ten minutes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with dignity. “This way, then,” said the other man in brown, and they walked slowly down the North Street towards the Grammar School. There was, perhaps, thirty seconds’ silence. The other man stroked his moustache nervously. Mr. Hoopdriver’s dramatic instincts were now fully awake. He did not quite understand in what _rôle_ he was cast, but it was evidently something dark and mysterious. Doctor Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, and Alexander Dumas were well within Mr. Hoopdriver’s range of reading, and he had not read them for nothing.