CHAPTER XII:  GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON YRAM CAUTIONS THE PROFESSORS

On the morning after the interview with her son described in a foregoing chapter, Yram told her husband what she had gathered from the Professors, and said that she was expecting Higgs every moment, inasmuch as she was confident that George would soon find him.

“Do what you like, my dear,” said the Mayor.  “I shall keep out of the way, for you will manage him better without me.  You know what I think of you.”

He then went unconcernedly to his breakfast, at which the Professors found him somewhat taciturn.  Indeed they set him down as one of the dullest and most uninteresting people they had ever met.

When George returned and told his mother that though he had at last found the inn at which my father had slept, my father had left and could not be traced, she was disconcerted, but after a few minutes she said—­

“He will come back here for the dedication, but there will be such crowds that we may not see him till he is inside the temple, and it will save trouble if we can lay hold on him sooner.  Therefore, ride either to Clearwater or Fairmead, and see if you can find him.  Try Fairmead first; it is more out of the way.  If you cannot hear of him there, come back, get another horse, and try Clearwater.  If you fail here too, we must give him up, and look out for him in the temple to-morrow morning.”

“Are you going to say anything to the Professors?”

“Not if you can bring Higgs here before night-fall.  If you cannot do this I must talk it over with my husband; I shall have some hours in which to make up my mind.  Now go—­the sooner the better.”

It was nearly eleven, and in a few minutes George was on his way.  By noon he was at Fairmead, where he tried all the inns in vain for news of a person answering the description of my father—­for not knowing what name my father might choose to give, he could trust only to description.  He concluded that since my father could not be heard of in Fairmead by one o’clock (as it nearly was by the time he had been round all the inns) he must have gone somewhere else; he therefore rode back to Sunch’ston, made a hasty lunch, got a fresh horse, and rode to Clearwater, where he met with no better success.  At all the inns both at Fairmead and Clearwater he left word that if the person he had described came later in the day, he was to be told that the Mayoress particularly begged him to return at once to Sunch’ston, and come to the Mayor’s house.

Now all the time that George was at Fairmead my father was inside the Musical Bank, which he had entered before going to any inn.  Here he had been sitting for nearly a couple of hours, resting, dreaming, and reading Bishop Gurgoyle’s pamphlet.  If he had left the Bank five minutes earlier, he would probably have been seen by George in the main street of Fairmead—­as he found out on reaching the inn which he selected and ordering dinner.