Part 44 (1/2)
”And that's how Jarman's cigar got on to it.”
”Yes--but--”
”And that's how it blew up, wasn't it? You haven't the cheek to say that wasn't the way it blew up?”
”Of course it was; only--”
”Therefore, if you hadn't stuck it there it wouldn't have blown up. You can't deny that?”
”I don't say that. What I say--”
”Therefore, it was you who blew it up; and it's you've got to pay for the fireworks, Q.E.D.; and if you don't shut up, young Sarah, you'll get your face washed.”
I felt I was the victim of a very one-sided argument, but the popular verdict was so manifestly in favour of the secretary, that I was constrained to allow the point to pa.s.s.
”--reason why,” resumed Langrish. ”There was a bit of a row, and the doctor and some of the chaps were had up before the beak. We got on all serene till a howling chimpanzee whose name is Sarah--”
”There you are again,” said I. ”I'll pay you now.”
”What are you talking about? I never mentioned you--did I, you chaps?”
”Rather not,” chimed in the Philosophers a.s.sembled.
”Of course,” said Langrish, ”if whenever you hear of a howling chimpanzee you think you're being referred to, we can't help it, can we?”
The cheers which greeted this unanswerable proposition convinced me I had given myself away for once.
”--howling chimpanzee, whose name's Sarah, put in his oar and spoilt the whole thing.”
”If it hadn't been for me,” protested I, ”you'd none of you have been there at all.”
”The magistrate,” proceeded Langrish, not heeding the interruption, ”treated him with the contempt he deserved, and gave him a caution which he'll remember to the end of his days.”
”I don't remember it now,” I growled.
”Turn him out for interrupting,” shouted the secretary.
”You'd better not try,” snarled I, preparing to contest my seat. But Langrish, eager to continue, went on,--
”The rest of us pulled Tempest through easy. If Trim hadn't dropped his 'h's,' and--”
Here there was a real row. Trim rose majestic and outraged, and hurled himself on the secretary; and for a quarter of an hour at least, any casual pa.s.ser-by glancing at the apparently empty barge in mid-stream, would have come to the conclusion that it was swaying from side to side rather more violently than the force of the current seemed to warrant.
Trimble's ”h's” took a long time to avenge, and by the time it was done most of us were pretty much the colour of the coal-dust in which we had searched for them.
Langrish was about to proceed with his luckless minutes when Warminster, who had happened to peep above board for the sake of fresh air, exclaimed,--
”Hullo, we're adrift!”
Instantly all hands were on board, and we discovered that our gallant barge, probably during the last argument, had slipped her boathook at the stern, and that the rope which held our prow had evidently been slipped for us by a couple of youths wearing the town-boy ribbon, whom we could descry at that moment strolling innocently up the towing-path, apparently heedless of our existence.