CHAPTER XVI.
THE ARCADIA MIXTURE AGAIN.
[Illustration] One day, some weeks after we left Scrymgeour's house-boat, I was alone in my rooms, very busy smoking, when William John entered with a telegram.

It was from Scrymgeour, and said, "You have got me into a dreadful mess.

Come down here first train." Wondering what mess I could have got Scrymgeour into, I good-naturedly obeyed his summons, and soon I was smoking placidly on the deck of the house-boat, while Scrymgeour, sullen and nervous, tramped back and forward.

I saw quickly that the only tobacco had something to do with his troubles, for he began by announcing that one evening soon after we left him he found that we had smoked all his Arcadia.

He would have dispatched the boy to London for it, but the boy had been all day in the village buying a loaf, and would not be back for hours.