it looked so jolly that I sat down on the water's edge and began to think
things over.

First I thought Mr. O'Brien over. Middle height, a beard, and an Irish
brogue. Could the German accent have been put on to conceal the brogue?
Looking to what I was doing myself, why not? Then I thought Dr. Rendall
over. Also middle height, a moustache, and no particular accent. But then
again, if I put on an accent, why not he? Then I thought over what I had
learned of the laird. A cousin of the doctor's, a "damned queer fish,"
almost the only associate of this couple, and hard up. Ought I to go
straight off and confide in him?

"Not to begin with anyhow!" I said to myself, and up I jumped and
continued my walk.

About a hundred yards further on I rounded a corner and came upon a very
miserable figure. He was an old, old man with tinted spectacles and a
long white beard, and the raggedest overcoat I ever saw, and he was
sitting on the grass with his feet in the ditch apparently doing nothing
but simply sitting still. As I approached he peered at me as though he
were more than half blind and then in an extraordinary thin, high, piping
voice he said,

"A fine day, mister!"

This time I did the Teutonic bully. It went horribly against the grain to
strafe such a miserable object, but with no one looking on I thought that
the kind of Hun I was supposed to be would probably treat a worm like
this to a touch of the All-Highest.