“Have a pear?” he pleasantly offered.

The man again looked up, as if tempted, but again ejaculated “Non!”

Chamberlain leisurely took a satisfying bite.

“I get tired myself,” he went on, “tramping over these country roads.  But it’s the best way for me to do business.  You don’t happen to want a good hotel, do you?”

Coarse fare and the discomforts of beggars’ lodgings had told on the Frenchman’s temper, as Chamberlain had surmised.  He looked up with a show of human interest.  Chamberlain went on.

“There’s a fine hotel, the Hillside, over yonder, only a mile or so away.  Best place in all the region hereabouts; tip-topping set there, too.  Count Somebody-or-Other from Germany, and no end of big-wigs; so of course they have a good cook.”

Chamberlain paused and finished his second pear.  The man on the stone was furtive and uneasy, but masked his disquiet with the insolent sneering manner that had often served him well.  Chamberlain, having once adopted the role of a garrulous traveling salesman, followed it up with zest.

“Of course, a man can get a good meal, for that matter, at the Red House, a little way up yonder over the hill.  But it wouldn’t suit a man like you—­a slow, poky place, with no style.”

The man on the stone slowly turned toward Chamberlain, and at last found voice for more than monosyllabic utterances.

“I was looking for a hotel,” he said, in correct English but with a foreign accent, “and I shall be glad to take your advice.  The Hillside, you say, is in this direction?” and he pointed along the lower road.

“Yes,” heartily assented Chamberlain, “about two miles through those woods, and you won’t make any mistake going there; it’s a very good place.”

The man got up from the stone.

“And the other inn you spoke of—­where is that?”

“The Red House?  That’s quite a long piece up over the hill—­this way.  Straight road; house stands near a church; kept by a country woman named Sallie.  But the Hillside’s the place for you; good style, everything neat and handsome.  And fine people!”

“Very well, thanks,” cut in the other, in his sharp, rasping tones.  “I shall go to the Hillside.”

He slid one hand into a pocket, as if to assure himself that he had not been robbed by sleight-of-hand during the interview, and then started on the road leading to the Hillside.  Chamberlain said “Good day, sir,” without expecting or getting an answer, and turned down the hill toward the village.

As soon as he had dropped from sight, however, he walked casually into the thick bushes that lined the road, and from this ambush he took a careful survey of the hill behind him.  Then he slowly and cautiously made his way back through the underbrush until he was again in sight of the cross-roads.  Here, concealed behind a tree, he waited patiently some five or ten minutes.  At the end of that time, Chamberlain’s mild and kindly face lighted up with unholy joy.  He opened his mouth and emitted a soundless “haw-haw.”