"Give me your
handkerchief."
I did so. He hopped nimbly out, ran back down the hill (he was a
spry little person in spite of his bald crown), and dropped the
handkerchief on the Walton Road about a hundred feet beyond the
fork. Then he followed me up the slope.
"There," he said, grinning like a kid, "that'll fool him. The Sage
of Redfield will undoubtedly follow a false spoor and the criminals
will win a good start. But I'm afraid it's rather easy to follow a
craft as unusual as Parnassus."
"Tell me how you manage the thing," I said. "Do you really make it
pay?" We halted at the top of the hill to give Pegasus a breathing
space. The terrier lay down in the dust and watched us gravely. Mr.
Mifflin pulled out a pipe and begged my permission to smoke.
"It's rather comical how I first got into it," he said. "I was a
school teacher down in Maryland. I'd been plugging away in a country
school for years, on a starvation salary. I was trying to support an
invalid mother, and put by something in case of storms. I remember
how I used to wonder whether I'd ever be able to wear a suit that
wasn't shabby and have my shoes polished every day.
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