“DEAR SIR,—­My Harry, Mr. Hawk, sas to me how it was him upsetting the boat and you, not because he is not steady in a boat which he is no man more so in Combe Regis, but because one of the gentlemen what keeps chikkens up the hill, the little one, Mr. Garnick his name is, says to him, Hawk, I’ll give you a sovrin to upset Mr. Derick in your boat, and my Harry being esily led was took in and did, but he’s sory now and wishes he hadn’t, and he sas he’ll niver do a prackticle joke again for anyone even for a banknote.—­Yours obedly.,
                                            JANE MUSPRATT.”

Oh, woman, woman!

At the bottom of everything!  History is full of tragedies caused by the lethal sex.  Who lost Mark Antony the world?  A woman.  Who let Samson in so atrociously?  Woman again.  Why did Bill Bailey leave home?  Once more, because of a woman.  And here was I, Jerry Garnet, harmless, well-meaning writer of minor novels, going through the same old mill.

I cursed Jane Muspratt.  What chance had I with Phyllis now?  Could I hope to win over the professor again?  I cursed Jane Muspratt for the second time.

My thoughts wandered to Mr. Harry Hawk.  The villain!  The scoundrel!  What business had he to betray me? . . .  Well, I could settle with him.  The man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is justly disliked by Society; so the woman Muspratt, culpable as she was, was safe from me.  But what of the man Hawk?  There no such considerations swayed me.  I would interview the man Hawk.  I would give him the most hectic ten minutes of his career.  I would say things to him the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking in his bed in the small hours of the night.  I would arise, and be a man, and slay him; take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May, at gaming, swearing, or about some act that had no relish of salvation in it.

The Demon!

My life—­ruined.  My future—­grey and black.  My heart—­shattered.  And why?  Because of the scoundrel, Hawk.

Phyllis would meet me in the village, on the Cob, on the links, and pass by as if I were the Invisible Man.  And why?  Because of the reptile, Hawk.  The worm, Hawk.  The dastard and varlet, Hawk.

I crammed my hat on, and hurried out of the house towards the village.

CHAPTER XVI

A CHANCE MEETING

I roamed the place in search of the varlet for the space of half-an-hour, and, after having drawn all his familiar haunts, found him at length leaning over the sea-wall near the church, gazing thoughtfully into the waters below.

I confronted him.

“Well,” I said, “you’re a beauty, aren’t you?”

He eyed me owlishly.  Even at this early hour, I was grieved to see, he showed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown.  His eyes were filmy, and his manner aggressively solemn.