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The Ball and the Cross

Turnbull, whose powers of surprise were exhausted, rolled his round gray eyes and said, “Mr. Wilkinson, I think,” because he could not think of anything else to say.

The tall man sitting on the gravel bowed with urbanity, and said: “Quite at your service. Not to be confused with the Wilkinsons of Cumberland; and as I say, old boy, what have you done with my yacht? You see, they’ve locked me up here—in this garden—and a yacht would be a sort of occupation for an unmarried man.”

“I am really horribly sorry,” began Turnbull, in the last stage of bated bewilderment and exasperation, “but really——”

“Oh, I can see you can’t have it on you at the moment,” said Mr. Wilkinson with much intellectual magnanimity.

“Well, the fact is—” began Turnbull again, and then the phrase was frozen on his mouth, for round the corner came the goatlike face and gleaming eye-glasses of Dr. Quayle.

“Ah, my dear Mr. Wilkinson,” said the doctor, as if delighted at a coincidence; “and Mr. Turnbull, too. Why, I want to speak to Mr. Turnbull.”

Mr. Turnbull made some movement rather of

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