It was not difficult to get on his trade, even though the village people were constitutionally reluctant to let any unnecessary information get away from them.  A mile or so farther up the shore, beyond the road that ran like a scar across the hill to the granite quarry, Chamberlain came upon a saloon masquerading as a grocery store.  A lodging house, a seaman’s Bethel and the Reading-room were grouped near by; the telegraph office, too, had been placed at this end of the town; obviously for the convenience of the operators of the granite quarry.  The settlement had the appearance of easy-going and pleasant industry peculiar to places where handwork is still the rule.

Chamberlain applied first at the grocery store without getting satisfaction.  The foreign looking boy, who was the only person visible, could give him no information about anything.  But at the Reading-room the erstwhile yacht-owner was known.  Borrowing money is a sure method of impressing one’s personality.

The Frenchman had been in the neighborhood two or three days, latterly becoming very impatient for a reply to his New York telegram.  A good deal of money had been applied for, was the opinion of the money-lender.  This person, caretaker and librarian, was a tall, ineffective individual, with eyes set wide apart.  His slow speech was a mixture of Doctor Johnson and a judge in chancery.  It was grandiloquent, and it often took long to reach the point.  He informed Chamberlain, with some circumlocution, that the Frenchman had been extremely anxious over the telegram.

“I tried to persuade him that it was useless to be impatient over such things,” said he.  “And I regret to say that the man allowed himself to become profane.”

“I dare say.”

“But it would appear that he has received his telegram by this time,” continued the youth, “for it is now but a short time since he was summoned to the station.”

Chamberlain, thinking that the sooner he got to the telegraph station the better, was about to depart, when the placid tones of the librarian again casually broke the silence.

“If I mistake not, the gentleman in question is even now hastening toward the village.”  He waved a vague hand toward the open door through which, a little distance away, a man’s figure could be seen.

“Why don’t you run after him and get your money?” asked Chamberlain; but he didn’t know the youth.

“What good would that do?” was the surprising question, which Chamberlain could not answer.

But the Englishman acted on a different principle.  He thanked the judge in chancery and made after the Frenchman, who was casting a furtive eye in this and that direction, as if in doubt which way he ought to go.  Nevertheless, he seemed bent on going, and not too slowly, either.

The Englishman swung into the road, but did not endeavor to overtake the other.  They were traveling toward the main village, along a road that more or less hugged the shore.  Sometimes it topped a cliff that dropped precipitately into the water; and again it descended to a sandy level that was occasionally reached by the higher tides.