He looked at me now, and his glance was full of deepest suspicion.

He opened his mouth to speak, but words seemed to fail him; he held out the leathern case towards me.
Strange as was the question that his gesture put I could not doubt it.
"I haven't touched the book," said I."Indeed, sir, only your visible agitation can gain you pardon for the suggestion." "Then how--how ?" he muttered.
"You pass my understanding, sir," said I in petulant amusement.

"I say in jest 'I come, thou comest, he comes,' and the words act on you like abracadabra and the blackest of magic.

You don't, I presume, carry a hornbook of French in your case; and if you do, I haven't robbed you of it." He was turning the little case over and over in his hands, again examining the clasps of it.

His next freak was to snatch his pistol and look to the priming.