Part 20 (1/2)
I was afraid to say I was, because I apprehended that, if I did, it might occur to him to put me through some still more frightful performance.
'Come,' he said, 'you won't compel me to shed blood so early in the afternoon, will you? Up with you.'
I got up, but, as I hung there, I tried to obtain a modification of some of the details. 'I don't think,' I said artfully, 'that I'll put out my tongue--it's rather overdone, eh? _Everybody_ is taken with his tongue out nowadays.'
'It is true,' he said, 'but I am not well enough known in the profession yet to depart entirely from the conventional. Your tongue out as far as it will go, please.'
'I shall have a rush of blood to the head, I know I shall,' I protested.
'Look here,' he said; 'am I taking this photograph, or are you?'
There was no possible doubt, unfortunately, as to who was taking the photograph. I made one last remonstrance. 'I put it to you as a sensible man,' I began; but it is a waste of time to put anything to a raving lunatic as a sensible man. It is enough to say that he carried his point.
'I wish you could see the negative!' he said as he came back from his laboratory. 'You were a little red in the face, but it will come out black, so it's all right. That carte will be quite a novelty, I flatter myself.'
I groaned. However, this was the end; I would get away now at all hazards, and tell the police that there was a dangerous maniac at large.
I got down from the mast with affected briskness. 'Well,' I said, 'I mustn't take advantage of your good nature any longer. I'm exceedingly obliged to you for the--the pains you have taken. You will send _all_ the photographs to this address, please?'
'Don't go yet,' he said. 'Are you an equestrian, by the way?'
If I could only engage him in conversation I felt comparatively secure.
'Oh, I put in an appearance in the Row sometimes, in the season,' I replied; 'and, while I think of it,' I added, with what I thought at the time was an inspiration, 'if you will come with me now, I'll show you my horse--you might take me on horseback, eh?' I did not possess any such animal, but I wanted to have that door unlocked.
'Take you on horseback?' he repeated. 'That's a good idea--I had rather thought of that myself.'
'Then come along and bring your instrument,' I said, 'and you can take me at the stables; they're close by.'
'No need for that,' he replied cheerfully. 'I'll find you a mount here.'
And the wretched lunatic went behind the screen and wheeled out a small wooden quadruped covered with large round spots!
'She's a strawberry roan,' he said; 'observe the strawberries. So, my beauty, quiet, then! Now settle yourself easily in the saddle, as if you were in the Row, with your face to the tail.'
'Listen to me for one moment,' I entreated tremulously. 'I a.s.sure you that I am not in the habit of appearing in Rotten Row on a spotted wooden horse, nor does any one, I a.s.sure you--_any_ one mount a horse of any description with his face towards the crupper! If you take me like that, you will betray your ignorance--you will be laughed at!'
When people tell you it is possible to hoodwink the insane by any specious show of argument, don't believe them; my own experience is that demented persons can be quite perversely logical when it suits their purpose.
'Pardon me,' he said, '_you_ will be laughed at possibly--not I. I cannot be held responsible for the caprices of my clients. Mount, please; she'll carry you perfectly.'
'I will,' I said, 'if you'll give me the revolver to hold. I--I should like to be done with a revolver.'
'I shall be delighted to do you with a revolver,' he said grimly, 'but not yet; and if I lent you the weapon now, I could not answer for your being able to hold the horse as well--she has never been broken in to firearms. _I'll_ hold the revolver. One--two--three.'
I mounted; why had I not disregarded the expense and gone to Lenz and Kamerer? Lenz does not pose his customers by the aid of a revolver.
Kamerer, I was sure, would not put his patrons through these degrading tomfooleries.