“Jock Scrabble—­no, but say! By golly, there was a fellow up in the Big Woods that came from St. Cl—­St. Cloud?  Yes, that was it.  He was telling us about the town.  I remember he said your brother had great chances there.”

The Englishman meditatively accepted a bad cigar from Mr. Wrenn.  Suddenly:  “You chaps can sleep in the stable-loft if you’d like.  But you must blooming well stop smoking.”

So in the dark odorous hay-mow Mr. Wrenn stretched out his legs with an affectionate “good night” to Morton.  He slept nine hours.  When he awoke, at the sound of a chain clanking in the stable below, Morton was gone.  This note was pinned to his sleeve: 

DEAR OLD MAN,—­I still feel sure that you will not enjoy the hiking.  Bumming is not much fun for most people, I don’t think, even if they say it is.  I do not want to live on you.  I always did hate to graft on people.  So I am going to beat it off alone.  But I hope I will see you in N Y & we will enjoy many a good laugh together over our trip.  If you will phone the P. R. R. you can find out when I get back & so on.  As I do not know what your address will be.  Please look me up & I hope you will have a good trip. 
                                   Yours truly,
                                        HARRY P. MORTON.

Mr. Wrenn lay listening to the unfriendly rattling of the chain harness below for a long time.  When he crawled languidly down from the hay-loft he glowered in a manner which was decidedly surly even for Bill Wrenn at a middle-aged English stranger who was stooping over a cow’s hoof in a stall facing the ladder.

“Wot you doing here?” asked the Englishman, raising his head and regarding Mr. Wrenn as a housewife does a cockroach in the salad-bowl.

Mr. Wrenn was bored.  This seemed a very poor sort of man; a bloated Cockney, with a dirty neck-cloth, vile cuffs of grayish black, and a waistcoat cut foolishly high.

“The owner said I could sleep here,” he snapped.

“Ow.  ’E did, did ’e?  ’E ayn’t been giving you any of the perishin’ ’osses, too, ’as ’e?”

It was sturdy old Bill Wrenn who snarled, “Oh, shut up!” Bill didn’t feel like standing much just then.  He’d punch this fellow as he’d punched Pete, as soon as not—­or even sooner.

“Ow....  It’s shut up, is it?...  I’ve ’arf a mind to set the ’tecs on you, but I’m lyte.  I’ll just ’it you on the bloody nowse.”

Bill Wrenn stepped off the ladder and squared at him.  He was sorry that the Cockney was smaller than Pete.

The Cockney came over, feinted in an absent-minded manner, made swift and confusing circles with his left hand, and hit Bill Wrenn on the aforesaid bloody nose, which immediately became a bleeding nose.  Bill Wrenn felt dizzy and, sitting on a grain-sack, listened amazedly to the Cockney’s apologetic: 

“I’m sorry I ayn’t got time to ’ave the law on you, but I could spare time to ’it you again.”