The very impossibility of any explanation showed that I had, in the most unexpected fashion, stumbled on some secret with him even as I had before with Darrell.

Was his secret Darrell's or his own, the same or another?
What it was I could not tell, but for certain there it was.

He had no resource but to carry the matter with a high hand, and to this he betook himself with the readiness of his nation.
"You ask an explanation, sir ?" he cried.

"There's nothing to explain, and if there were, I give explanations when I please, and not to every fellow who chooses to ask them of me." "I come, thou comest, he comes,--'tis a very mysterious phrase," said I.
"I can't tell what it means.

And if you won't tell me, sir, I must ask others." "You'll be wiser to ask nobody," he said menacingly.
"Nay, I shall be no wiser if I ask nobody," I retorted with a smile.
"Yet you'll tell nobody of what has passed," said he, advancing towards me with the plain intention of imposing his will on me by fear, since persuasion failed.