“Hullo!” cried I, who had turned from his rhapsody to con the news again, and on the instant had been caught by a familiar name at the foot of the page.

“What is it?”

“Why,” said I, reading, “it seems that you are not the only such madman as you have just proclaimed yourself.  Listen to this:  it is headed “‘Falmouth.’

“’A Gentleman, having read that the Methodist Preachers are to
pay a visit to Falmouth, Cornwall, on the 16th, 17th, and 18th
of next month; and that on the occasion of their last visit
certain women, their sympathizers, were set upon and brutally
handled by the mob; hereby announces that he will be present on
the Market Strand, Falmouth, on these dates, with intent to put
a stop to such behaviour, and invites any who share his
indignation to meet him there and help to see fair play. 
The badge to be a Red Rose pinned in the hat.’”
“‘EUGENIO.’”

“What think you of that?” I asked, without turning my head.

“The newspaper comes from Cornwall?” he asked.

“From Falmouth itself.  My father sent it. . . .  Jove!” I cried after a moment, “I wonder if he’s answerable for this?  ’Twould be like his extravagance.”

“A pity but what you inherited some of it, then,” said Nat, crossly.

“Tell you what, Nat”—­I slewed about in my chair—­“Come you down to Cornwall and we’ll stick each a rose in our hats and help this Master Engenio, whoever he is.  I’ve a curiosity to discover him:  and if he be my father—­he has not marked the passage, by the way—­we’ll have rare fun in smoking him and tracking him unbeknown to the rendezvous.  Come, lad; and if I know the Falmouth mob, you shall have a pretty little turn-up well worth the journey.”

But Nat, still staring out of window, shook his head.  He was in one of his perverse moods—­and they had been growing frequent of late—­ in which nothing I could say or do seemed to content him; and for this I chiefly accused the cordwainer’s daughter, who in fact was a decent merry girl, fond of strawberries, with no more notion of falling in love with Nat than of running off with her father’s apprentice.  Whatever the cause of it, a cloud had been creeping over our friendship of late.  He sought companions—­some of them serious men—­with whom I could not be easy.  We kept up the pretence, but talked no longer with entirely open hearts.  Yet I loved him; and now in a sudden urgent desire to carry him off to Cornwall with me and clear up all misunderstandings, I caught his arm and haled him down to our college garden, which lies close within the city wall; and there, pacing the broken military terrace, plied him with a dozen reasons why he should come.  Still he shook his head to all of them; and presently, hearing four o’clock strike, pulled up in his walk and announced that he must be going—­he had an engagement.

“And where?” I asked.

He confessed that it was to visit the poor prisoners shut up for debt in Bocardo.