“On my legs,” said Jack.  “Do you think nobody wants to know nothing but yourself?  I’m as fond of a yarn as anybody.”

“But if you are,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “you had no occasion to come against me as if you wanted to move a house.”

“You said as you wasn’t in a position to say something as I wanted to hear, so I thought I’d alter it for you.”

“Is this fellow,” said the doctor, shaking his head, as he accosted the admiral, “the most artful or stupid?”

“A little of both,” said Admiral Bell—­“a little of both, doctor.  He’s a great fool and a great scamp.”

“The same to you,” said Jack; “you’re another.  I shall hate you presently, if you go on making yourself so ridiculous.  Now, mind, I’ll only give you a trial of another week or so, and if you don’t be more purlite in your d—­n language, I’ll leave you.”

Away strolled Jack, with his hands in his pockets, towards the house, while the admiral was half choked with rage, and could only glare after him, without the ability to say a word.

Under any other circumstances than the present one of trouble, and difficulty; and deep anxiety, Henry Bannerworth must have laughed at these singular little episodes between Jack and the admiral; but his mind was now by far too much harassed to permit him to do so.

“Let him go, let him go, my dear sir,” said Mr. Chillingworth to the admiral, who showed some signs of an intention to pursue Jack; “he no doubt has been drinking again.”

“I’ll turn him off the first moment I catch him sober enough to understand me,” said the admiral.

“Well, well; do as you please; but now let me ask a favour of both of you.”

“What is it?”

“That you will leave Bannerworth Hall to me for a week.”

“What for?”

“I hope to make some discoveries connected with it which shall well reward you for the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” said Henry; “and for myself, I have amply sufficient faith, both in your judgment and in your friendship, doctor, to accede to any request which you may make to me.”

“And I,” said the admiral.  “Be it so—­be it so.  For one week, you say?”

“Yes—­for one week.  I hope, by the end of that time, to have achieved something worth the telling you of; and I promise you that, if I am at all disappointed in my expectation, that I will frankly and freely communicate to you all I know and all I suspect.”

“Then that’s a bargain.”

“It is.”

“And what’s to be done at once?”

“Why, nothing, but to take the greatest possible care that Bannerworth Hall is not left another hour without some one in it; and in order that such should be the case, I have to request that you two will remain here until I go to the town, and make preparations for taking quiet possession of it myself, which I will do in the course of two hours, at most.”

“Don’t be longer,” said the admiral, for I am so desperately hungry, that I shall certainly begin to eat somebody, if you are.”