There was a pause, and they looked askance upon Wickens’s boy.  His account of the kissing made it almost an insult to the Janseniuses to identify with Henrietta the person he had seen.  Jane suggested dragging the canal, but was silenced by an indignant “sh-sh-sh,” accompanied by apprehensive and sympathetic glances at the bereaved parents.  She was displaced from the focus of attention by the appearance of the two policemen who had been sent to the chalet.  Smilash was between them, apparently a prisoner.  At a distance, he seemed to have suffered some frightful injury to his head, but when he was brought into the midst of the company it appeared that he had twisted a red handkerchief about his face as if to soothe a toothache.  He had a particularly hangdog expression as he stood before the inspector with his head bowed and his countenance averted from Mr. Jansenius, who, attempting to scrutinize his features, could see nothing but a patch of red handkerchief.

One of the policemen described how they had found Smilash in the act of entering his dwelling; how he had refused to give any information or to go to the college, and had defied them to take him there against his will; and how, on their at last proposing to send for the inspector and Mr. Jansenius, he had called them asses, and consented to accompany them.  The policeman concluded by declaring that the man was either drunk or designing, as he could not or would not speak sensibly.

“Look here, governor,” began Smilash to the inspector, “I am a common man—­no commoner goin’, as you may see for—­”

“That’s ’im,” cried Wickens’s boy, suddenly struck with a sense of his own importance as a witness.  “That’s ’im that the lady kissed, and that gev me tuppence and threatened to drownd me.”

“And with a ’umble and contrite ’art do I regret that I did not drownd you, you young rascal,” said Smilash.  “It ain’t manners to interrupt a man who, though common, might be your father for years and wisdom.”

“Hold your tongue,” said the inspector to the boy.  “Now, Smilash, do you wish to make any statement?  Be careful, for whatever you say may be used against you hereafter.”

“If you was to lead me straight away to the scaffold, colonel, I could tell you no more than the truth.  If any man can say that he has heard Jeff Smilash tell a lie, let him stand forth.”

“We don’t want to hear about that,” said the inspector.  “As you are a stranger in these parts, nobody here knows any bad of you.  No more do they know any good of you neither.”

“Colonel,” said Smilash, deeply impressed, “you have a penetrating mind, and you know a bad character at sight.  Not to deceive you, I am that given to lying, and laziness, and self-indulgence of all sorts, that the only excuse I can find for myself is that it is the nature of the race so to be; for most men is just as bad as me, and some of ’em worsen I do not speak pers’nal to you, governor, nor to the honorable gentlemen here assembled.  But then you, colonel, are a hinspector of police, which I take to be more than merely human; and as to the gentlemen here, a gentleman ain’t a man—­leastways not a common man—­the common man bein’ but the slave wot feeds and clothes the gentleman beyond the common.”