Part 18 (2/2)

'You ought to make friends with Juan Lara's wife,' said Purvis. 'She often washes d.i.c.k's little things for him, and does it very nicely.'

'I believe that Lara, on purely economical grounds, wears our s.h.i.+rts a week or two before he hands them over to his wife to wash,' said Ross, laughing.

'Ross,' said Peter, 'employs the gaucho's plan, and wears three s.h.i.+rts, and when the top one gets dirty he discloses the next one to view.'

'Remember, little man,' said Ross, stretching out a huge foot towards Peter's rec.u.mbent figure on the deck-chair, 'I 'm a head and shoulders taller than you are.'

'I 'm sure Mr. Ogilvie's remark was only in fun,' interposed Purvis.

He rose and went to summon his boy to come and have coffee, and the three men left behind under the trees watched him disappearing into the house.

'If it were a matter of real necessity,' said Ross, 'I believe I could endure the loss of Purvis; he becomes a bore, and tears and tabloids combined are really very depressing.'

'Poor beast!' said Toffy charitably.

'I can't make out,' said Ross, 'what the trouble is at present on his estancia. I have only heard some native gossip, and I don't know what it is all about; but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying on the top of a mine which may ”go off sudden.”'

'I believe,' began Peter, 'that Purvis is going to be of use, as Sir John thought he might be. There is a very odd tale he was telling me just now.' He broke off suddenly as Purvis reappeared in his usual quiet, shadowy way. He brought a small saddle-bag with him when he travelled, which seemed to be filled for the most part with papers.

His dark clothes were always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and he generally spent his days riding to and fro between the house and the nearest telegraph-office.

'You should take a holiday while you are here,' said Toffy, seeing Purvis sitting down immediately to write one of his interminable telegrams. 'It would do you good.'

'It's my nerves,' said Purvis hopelessly.

Ross laughed and said, 'If I lived on weak tea and tabloids as you do, Purvis, I should be in my grave in ten days.'

'I think,' said Purvis, 'that these new phospherine things are doing me some good. But I sleep so little now. I don't suppose there's an hour of the night when I 'm so sound asleep a whisper would not wake me.'

'It takes a good loud gong,' said Ross, 'to make me even realize that I am in bed.'

'At home,' said Peter, 'I once had an alarm-clock fixed above my bed to wake me, and at last I told the man who sold it to me that it never struck; and really I thought it did not until he showed me that it worked all right.'

'There is a beastly bell for the out-of-door servants at Hulworth,'

said Toffy, 'which is beside my window, and----'

'I know that bell,' said Peter. 'I tie it up regularly every time I am at Hulworth.'

'Have you also got a country seat?' asked Mr. Purvis.

'Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack,' replied Toffy. '”Country seat”

is too fine a name for it.'

'Is it quite near Bowshott?' asked Purvis.

'No, it's nine miles off,' said Peter, 'unless you ride across country.'

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