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ARTHUR WITHERS THINKS THINGS OUT¤½×Ï¥¤Å¤×䥤�¤¥Û¥Á¥×¤¤­The two of us sprang forward. How long or what way we went I have now no clear idea, but at length we neared again the grapevine ferry. The stream was swollen, we swam our horses, and on the farther side we found Kendall waiting. To the corporal's inquiry he replied that Ferry had just passed on. "You know Roy's; two miles off the Plank Road by the first right? He expects to stop there."¤ð¥¥¤¤¤¤ò¹d¨

CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR¥ä¥¥¤ÀCHAPTER I. THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR¥¹¤Without ceremony she darted into Countess Lalage's bedroom. The lights were still up, and the mistress of the house was brushing out her long black hair. She was cool and collected enough now.¥¤ÜÌã

�¸¥¤Ú¿Ô¤¤òÜ¥À�󥤥ꤤ¤¤¥"No, I'm not," grumbled the Doctor, "I've had enough of this wild-goose chase. And besides, it's nearly dinner time."¥¤ÜãÇÈÓ¥¥ºÖ´

CHAPTER THREE饤Ðæ¥çCHAPTER TEN¥¸¥¥ ¼¥¤`¤The next second he found himself contemplating what was apparently an empty heap of clothes lying upon the floor at his feet.ϤÈò¡¸¤

�ÞŤ¤¤¥¤Ô¹©¤Ø£�¥¤ÇWe had retraced our way but a few steps, when, looking behind me as a scout's habit is, I saw a horseman coming swiftly on the union Church road. "Colonel," I said, "here comes Scott Gholson."ØѥФ¬ñ³È

The doctor's astonishment was turned into annoyance by the spectacle of his shattered wicket. A vague clatter of applause broke out. The wicket-keeper stooped down to pick up the bails. The fielders relaxed and flopped down on the grass. They seemed to have discovered suddenly that it was a hot afternoon, and that cricket was, after all, a comparatively strenuous game. One of the umpires, a sly, nasty fellow, screwed up his eyes and looked hard at the doctor as the latter passed him, walking with the slow, meditative gait of the bowled out, and swinging his gloves. There was nothing to do but to glare back, and make the umpire feel a worm. The doctor wore an eye-glass, and he succeeded admirably. His irritation boiled over and produced a sense of ungovernable, childish rage. Somehow, he had not been able to make any runs this season, and his bowling average was all to pieces. He began to think he ought to give up cricket. He was getting[Pg 3] past the age when a man can accept reverses in the spirit of the game, and he was sick and tired of seeing his name every week in the Great Wymering Gazette as having been dismissed for a "mere handful."¥Å±¤¤¥Arthur stumbled into the room, dropped his straw hat on to the broken-down couch that occupied the entire side of one wall, and sat down at the table.¥¤²¤¥With the letter again held open, and bidding Miss Harper and Camille read with her, she swept a fleet glance along the close lines that told how Oliver, half cured of his wounds, had died in a congestive chill, of swamp-fever, the day he landed in New Orleans. "See, see, Richard, here your mother has copied the hospital's certificate."¤¤ÌÕ

"I'm afraid I put you to great inconvenience," murmured the visitor, still yawning and rolling about on the couch. "The fact is, I ought to be able to produce things—but that part of me seems to have gone wrong again. I did make a start—but it was only a flash in the pan. So sorry if I'm a nuisance."¤Ì¶¤­¤Âã¥Ö¤"You see," the mechanical voice went on, "only about half the clock is in action. That accounts for my present situation." There was a pause, broken only by obscure tickings, regular but thin in sound. "I had been feeling very run down, and went to have myself[Pg 80] attended to. Then some careless mechanic blundered, and of course I went all wrong." He turned swiftly and looked hard at Arthur. "All wrong. Absolutely all wrong. And of course, I—I—lapsed, you see."êߥإ²¹¥¤ð�¤ê¥

�¤ð¤�¤·¥¤¥"Yes, I lapsed. Slipped, if you like that better—slipped back about eight thousand years, so far as I can make out. And, of course, everything is different." His arms shot up both together in an abrupt gesture of despair. "And now I am confronted with all these old problems of Time and Space."ßࣥº¤¤Öʶ¤¤

The Clockwork man sighed, a long, whistling sigh. "I wish you would mend me. I'm all wrong you know. Something has got out of place, I think. My clock won't work properly."¤½¶¤¥¥¥¤"It's the regulating mechanism," said the other, monotonously, "I keep on forgetting that you can't know these things. You see, it controls me. But, of course, it's out of order. That's how I came to be here, in this absurd world. There can't be any other reason, I'm sure." He looked so childishly perplexed that Arthur's sense of pity was again aroused, and he listened in respectful silence.²¥¤¤ÅÚʥ«¥Arthur had a strong sense of originality, although he would have been the last person to claim originality in his thoughts. He disliked interference with any part of his personal being. As a boy he had been perturbed by the prospect of growing up. It had seemed to him such a hopeless sort of process, a mere longitudinal extension, without corresponding gain in other magnitudes. He suspected that[Pg 70] other dubious advantages were only to be purchased at the expense of a thinning out of the joys of childhood. Later on, he discovered, sadly enough, that this was the case; although it was possible deliberately to protract one's adolescence. Hence his untidiness, his inefficiency, and even his obtuseness, were less constitutional faults than weapons in the warfare against the encroachment of time.¥¥¥d¤¥

�Ṥ¤¥Ï¥×ð¼Ø¤ÑA cry rose to her lips, but she stifled it. In a sudden, blind, unreasoning fear she fled noiselessly up the stairs. She had seen that man's features. It was the face of the man from the Corner House!¤·×ç¥ÎàßAs we mounted I asked whither we were bound. "Tangipahoa," he said; "then by railroad to Brookhaven, and then out to Squire Wall's."¥¤¥¥¤