Sweetwater laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and rose.  In a half-hour he was at the depot, and in another fifteen minutes speeding out of New Bedford on his way to Boston.

He had had but one anxiety—­that Mr. Stone might be going up to Boston too.  But, once relieved of this apprehension, he settled back, and for the first time in twelve hours had a minute in which to ask himself who he was, and what he was about.  Adventure had followed so fast upon adventure that he was in a more or less dazed condition, and felt as little capable of connecting event with event as if he had been asked to recall the changing pictures of a kaleidoscope.  That affair of the packet, now, was it or was it not serious, and would he ever know what it meant or how it turned out?

Like a child who had been given a pebble, and told to throw it over the wall, he had thrown and run, giving a shout of warning, it is true, but not knowing, nor ever likely to know, where the stone had fallen, or what it was meant to do.  Then this new commission on which he was bent—­was it in any way connected with the other, or merely the odd result of his being in the right place at the right moment?  He was inclined to think the latter.  And yet how odd it was that one doubtful errand should be followed by another, in a town no larger than New Bedford, forcing him from scene to scene, till he found himself speeding toward the city he least desired to enter, and from which he had the most to fear!

But brooding over a case like this brings small comfort.  He felt that he had been juggled with, but he neither knew by whose hand nor in what cause.  If the hand was that of Providence, why he had only to go on following the beck of the moment, while if it was that of Fate, the very uselessness of struggling with it was apparent at once.  Poor reasoning, perhaps, but no other offered, and satisfied that whatever came his intentions were above question, he settled himself at last for a nap, of which he certainly stood in good need.  When he awoke he was in Boston.

The first thing he did was to show his list of addresses and inquire into what quarter they would lead him.  To his surprise he found it to be the fashionable quarter.  Two of them were names of well-known club-houses, a third that of a first-class restaurant, and the fourth that of a private house on Commonwealth Avenue.  Heigho! and he was dressed like a tramp, or nearly so!

“Queer messenger, I, for such kind of work,” thought he.  “I wonder why he lighted on such a rough-looking customer.  He must have had his reasons.  I wonder if he wished the errand to fail.  He bore himself very nonchalantly at the depot.  When I last saw him his face and attitude were those of a totally unconcerned man.  Have I been sent on a fool’s chase after all?”

The absurdity of this conclusion struck him, however, as he reasoned:  “Why, then, should he have paid my fare?  Not as a benefit to me, of course, but for his own ends, whatever they might be.  Let us see, then, what those ends are.  So now for the gentleman of the red hair who plays cards with one arm in a sling.”