CHAPTER VI.

HARRY ANNESLEY TELLS HIS SECRET.


Harry hurried down to Cheltenham, hardly knowing what he was going to do
or say when he got there. He went to the hotel and dined alone. "What's
all this that's up about Captain Mountjoy?" said a stranger, coming and
whispering to him at his table.

The inquirer was almost a stranger, but Harry did know his name. It was
Mr. Baskerville, the hunting man. Mr. Baskerville was not rich, and not
especially popular, and had no special amusement but that of riding two
nags in the winter along the roads of Cheltenham in the direction which
the hounds took. It was still summer, and the nags, who had been made to
do their work in London, were picking up a little strength in idleness,
or, as Mr. Baskerville called it, getting into condition. In the mean
time Mr. Baskerville amused himself as well as he could by lying in bed
and playing lawn-tennis. He sometimes dined at the hotel, in order that
the club might think that he was entertained at friends' houses; but the
two places were nearly the same to him, as he could achieve a dinner and
half a pint of wine for five or six shillings at each of them. A more
empty existence, or, one would be inclined to say, less pleasurable, no
one could pass; but he had always a decent coat on his back and a smile
on his face, and five shillings in his pocket with which to pay for his
dinner. His asking what was up about Scarborough showed, at any rate,
that he was very backward in the world's news.