A Matter of Interest | Page 3

if you would be kind enough to deny that I ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly," I added, "he imitates me."
"Now, do you know," she said, "I was afraid of you at first? Papa is digging in the salt meadows nearly a mile away."
It was hard to bear.
"Can you not see," said I, "that I am wearing a shooting coat?"
"I do see--now; but it is so-so old," she pleaded.
"It is a shooting coat all the same," I said bitterly.
She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.
"Never mind," I said magnanimously, "you probably are not familiar with sporting goods. If I knew your name I should ask permission to present myself."
"Why, I am Daisy Holroyd," she said.
"What! Jack Holroyd's little sister?"
"Little!" she cried.
"I didn't mean that," said I. "You know that your brother and I were great friends in Paris "
"I know," she said significantly.
"Ahem! Of course," I said, "Jack and I were inseparable--"
"Except when shut in separate cells," said Miss Holroyd coldly.
This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.
"The police," said I, "were too officious."
"So Jack says," replied Miss Holroyd demurely.
We had unconsciously moved on along the sand hills, side by side, as we spoke.
"To think," I repeated, "that I should meet Jack's little--"
"Please," she said, "you are only three years my senior."
She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was white, and had spots and posies on it.
"Jack sends us every new book you write," she observed. "I do not approve of some things you write."
"Modern school," I mumbled.
"That is no excuse," she said severely; "Anthony Trollope didn't do it."
The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across the shingle, only to tip and skeep and sail on again. The salt sea wind whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the crackling juicy-stemmed marsh weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the reeds, aggressive, protesting.
"Like millions of pigmy Ajaxes defying the lightning," I said.
Miss Holroyd laughed.
"Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print," she said.
She was a most extraordinary girl.
"I suppose," she observed after a moment's silence--"I suppose I am taking you to my father."
"Delighted!" I mumbled. "H'm! I had the honour of meeting Professor Holroyd in Paris."
"Yes; he bailed you and Jack out," said Miss Holroyd serenely.
The silence was too painful to last.
"Captain McPeek is an interesting man," I said. I spoke more loudly than I intended; I may have been nervous.
"Yes," said Daisy Holroyd, "but he has a most singular hotel clerk."
"You mean Mr. Frisby?"
"I do."
"Yes," I admitted, "Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster."
"I know it!" exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. "He ruins landscapes whenever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or billiards."
"But he's a hotel clerk now," I said; "nobody employs him to post bills."
"I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it. Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it," said the girl.
What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had not the faintest notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face, for she laughed, and nodded her head twice.
"Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also," she said.
"You don't mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his hotel!" I exclaimed.
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"Oh, no; his wife will keep it open," replied the girl. "Look! you can see papa now. He's digging."
"Where?" I blurted out.
I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou'wester, and hip-boots of rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his eyes with a sunburnt hand.
"Papa, dear," said Miss Holroyd, "here is Jack's friend, whom you bailed out of Mazas."
The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification. The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
When he said this he looked at his spade. It was clear that he considered me a nuisance and wished to go on with his digging.
"I suppose," he said, "you are still writing?"
"A little," I replied, trying