indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take
him as yours if you come to my house."

Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his
sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he.
"When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I
wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?"

"The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with
dignity.

"Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous
place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full
of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey.
Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly.
"Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?"

Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke,
perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over
before dinner."

"My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this
morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on
the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and
cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one
thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his
own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour
had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of
money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had
trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue