"What?" cried Barrymaine, starting up, "listening, were
you--s-spying on me--is that your game, Chichester?" But hereupon
Mr. Smivvle started forward.
"Now, my dear Barry," he remonstrated, "be calm--"
"Calm? I tell you nobody's going to spy on me,--no, by heaven!
neither you, nor Chichester, nor the d-devil himself--"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Smivvle, drawing
Barrymaine's clenched fist through his arm and holding it there,
"nobody wants to. And, as for you, Chichester--couldn't come at a
better time--let me introduce our friend Mr. Beverley--"
"Thank you, Smivvle, but we've met before," said Mr. Chichester dryly,
"last time he posed as Rustic Virtue in homespun, to-day it seems he
is the Good Samaritan in a flowered waistcoat, very anxiously bent
on saving some one or other--conditionally, of course!"
"And what the devil has it to do with you?" cried Barrymaine
passionately.
"Nothing, my dear boy, nothing in the world,--except that until
to-day you have been my friend, and have honored me with your
confidence."
"Yes, by heavens! So I have--utterly--utterly,--and what I haven't
told you--y-you've found out for yourself--though God knows how.
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