Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/217

Rh waistcoat armholes he eyed me warily, as if he had all at once been put upon his guard.

“Now how much do you know about it?”

“What do you mean? How much do I know about what?”

“What’s CaptianCaptain [sic] Lander told you about me?”

“About you? To me Captain Lander has never so much as mentioned your name.”

A sudden wild thought came into my head. “Are you—are you Benjamin Batters?”

The fellow’s mouth opened so wide I could see right down his throat.

“Me Benjamin Batters! Good Lord! What made you ask me such a thing as that?”

“Are you? Are you?” As I watched I doubted more and more. “I believe you are.”

“I’m not. Good Lord! You ask Captain Lander if I am. You said yourself just now that he was dead and buried.”

“And you hinted that he was not, but that he was still alive.”

Putting his hand up to his brow he brushed the fringe of hair partially aside, glancing furtively about the room.

“That’s as may be; that’s another matter altogether. But I don’t like your asking me if I was Batters. No man would. Have you ever seen him?”

“Never; unless I see him now.”

“Meaning me? I never came across such a man. What do you mean by keeping on asking if I’m Batters? What are you driving at? I won’t have it, whatever it is. Why Batters” He stopped: then second thoughts appearing best, changed from heat to cold. “Batters was not my sort at all.”

The man’s manner puzzled me.

“What was there about Benjamin Batters which makes you resent any comparison with him?”