it?--stumbling right into the heart of the agitation an hour after we
hit the town."
Varney, who had followed Peter's activities of the last five minutes
with considerable disapproval, did not answer his smile.
"Give me a hasty sketch of your conception of a quiet onlooker, will
you, Peter?"
"Tush!" said Peter. "Why, can't you see that this sort of thing will
make the finest kind of blind? St! Here's our little friend coming back
again."
"I say," called the voice of J. Pinkney Hare out of the gloom.
"Yes?" said Peter.
The candidate drew nearer.
"Our city is not plentifully supplied with amusements," he began in his
somewhat pompous manner. "It just occurred to me that, in lieu of
anything better, you gentlemen might care to go home with me now. I
should be happy to have you--and to reciprocate your courtesy in any way
within my power."
Peter, doubtless remembering the slow time he had been having on the
yacht, brightened instantly and visibly.
"Why, _thanks_. I'll be awfully glad to come. I--er--I'm tremendously
interested in your situation here, I assure you."
Then, catching a warning glance from Varney, who politely declined the
invitation, he apologized to the candidate and drew his captain briefly
aside.
"I'll pick up all the information I can--understand?" he murmured
hurriedly. "And don't you worry. A little flurry in politics will make
the best sort of a cover for you while you sneak around after Mary."
On that the two friends parted. Peter hurried on after the little
reformer, and Varney, turning, continued his way down Main Street toward
the river and the _Cypriani_, not entirely displeased, after all, that
Peter had found some congenial diversion for the evening.
The street was almost a desert. If the unmistakable sounds of revelry by
night meant anything, nearly the whole population was behind him in the
Ottoman bar. But in the middle of the next block, two ragged men,
standing idly and talking together, turned at the sounds of the young
man's steps. One of them, revealed by a near-by shop-light, had straggly
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