I never saw a man who looked less like an antiquary in my life!"
"Or talked less like one, I should think," suggested Madrasia.
"Oh, he'd picked up a few cant phrases, somewhere or other," observed Parslewe.
"He told me that he'd turned to this sort of thing, as he called it, for a hobby—a man, he observed, with the air of one uttering a hither-to-undiscovered truth, must have something to do. Ha-hah-hah!"
"He seems to have amused you, anyway," remarked Madrasia.
"Aye!—why not?" assented Parslewe. "Of course he did; I thought he looked much more at home with a glass in his hand and a pipe in his mouth than he would amongst either books or barrows."
"Well, really, I wondered whatever brought him here!" said Madrasia. "A neophyte, indeed!—in loud tweeds and a glaring necktie. I thought he was a sporting publican out for a walk."
I did not say what I thought. The fact was I had some queer suspicions about Mr. Pawley. I had noticed his odd, shrewd,
