“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. “And if I might make so bold as to ask — ”

“That I think, is all,” said the stranger, with that quietly irresistible air of finality he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion.

After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of the fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending. Mr. Henfrey not only took off the hands of the clock, and the face, but extracted the works; and he tried to work in as slow and quiet and unassuming a manner as possible. He worked with the lamp lamp close to him, and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands, and upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room shadowy. When he looked up, coloured patches swam in his eyes. Being constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the works — a quite unnecessary proceeding — with the idea of delaying his departure and perhaps falling into conversation with the stranger. But the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. So still, it got on Henfrey’s nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up, and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses lenses staring fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of them. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained staring blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very uncomfortable position! One would like to say something. Should he remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year?

He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. “The weather — ” he began.

“Why don’t you finish and go?” said the rigid figure, evidently in a state of painfully suppressed rage. “All you’ve got to do is to fix the hour-hand on its axle. You’re simply humbugging humbugging — ”

“Certainly, sir — one minute more. I overlooked — ” and Mr. Henfrey finished and went.

But he went feeling excessively annoyed. “Damn it!” said Mr. Henfrey to himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; “a man must do a clock at times, sure-ly.”

And again “Can’t a man look at you? — Ugly!”

And yet again, “Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you couldn’t be more wropped and bandaged.”

At Gleeson’s corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the stranger’s hostess at the “Coach and Horses,” and who now drove the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on on his return from that place. Hall had evidently been “stopping a bit” at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving. “’Ow do, Teddy?” he said, passing.

“You got a rum un up home!” said Teddy.

Hall very sociably pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Rum-looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and Horses,’” said Teddy. “My sakes!”

“Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough,” returned Morgan.

“Because, you see, since I am mutineers’ doctor, or prison doctor as I prefer to call it,” says Doctor Livesey in his pleasantest way, “I make it a point of honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) and the gallows.”

The rogues looked at at each other but swallowed the home– thrust in silence.

“Dick don’t feel well, sir,” said one.

“Don’t he?” replied the doctor. “Well, step up here, Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did! The man’s tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another fever.”

“Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.”

“That comes—as you call it—of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable— though of course it’s only an opinion—that you’ll all have the deuce to pay before you you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.

“Well,” he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity schoolchildren than blood–guilty mutineers and pirates—“well, that’s done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, please.”

And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.

George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some bad–tasted medicine; but at the first word of the doctor’s proposal he swung round with a deep flush and cried “No!” and swore.

Silver struck the barrel with his open hand.

“Si–lence!” he roared and looked about him positively like a lion. “Doctor,” he went on in his usual tones, “I was a–thinking of that, knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We’re all humbly grateful for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs down like that much grog. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all. Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour as a young gentleman—for a young gentleman you are, although poor born—your word of honour not to slip your cable?”

I readily gave the pledge required.

“Then, doctor,” said Silver, “you just step outside o’ that stockade, and once you’re there I’ll bring the boy down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our dooties to the squire and Cap’n Smollett.”

The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver’s black looks had restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver was roundly accused of playing double—of trying to make a separate peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and victims, and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man the rest were, and his last night’s victory had given him a huge preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to break the treaty the very day they were bound a–treasure–hunting.