Part 18 (1/2)

”Rare good sort,” he said appreciatively. ”Give us a splash of that soda, and pa.s.s those cigarettes, Jeff....” Then, lighting a cigarette, ”Look here, you old scoundrel,” he said, ”I've got a crow to pluck with you! Guess what it is?”

I could not.

”Well,” he leered. ”I saw Mackie the other night.”

You will remember what had happened the last time I myself had seen Mackie.

”So there!” he triumphed, after some recital or other that had for its point my single fit of intoxication. ”_Now_ what about it, you old humbug?” he demanded.

I knew I must keep my face and smile. I did not know why I must do these things, but I did them, looking at him and noticing again how sallow and changed he was. Then I looked about the room, mentally commenting on the evidences of the patrimony that had done him so little good--his new dressing-gown, his silver-topped bottles, and a new travelling-case, these things thrown anyhow among his older belongings. One of the newer objects I held in my hand; it was the gold cigarette case I had pa.s.sed him; and I gazed smiling at it as he went on.

”Yes,” he told me, with humorous accusation; ”Mackie told me all about it--ha ha ha! What price the old puritan Jeff now? Eh? Sad dog, sad dog!”

I replied, quite calmly, that the dissipations of commissionaires were limited by their circ.u.mstances.

”And what the devil are you doing being a commissionaire?” he demanded.

”I'll tell you what it was, Jeff,” he continued familiarly, ”that failure in Method seems to me to have broken you all up. What the d.i.c.kens made you fail?”

I was conscious of an interior stirring of hate. What, indeed, had made me fail!

”Oh, over-confidence, I suppose,” I answered lightly.

And he continued to talk.

At last I rose and said good-night. He raised himself on one elbow in order to shake hands.

”Come in again and see a chap soon,” he said. ”It's h.e.l.lish slow up here all alone.”

I was already at the door, but I turned abruptly.

”What do you mean?” I said. ”Do you mean you're laid up? You said you weren't.”

But he only gave a confused little laugh. ”Eh? Laid up? Of course not!

Can't a chap turn in early once in a while?”

”'Once in a while'?... But you said----”

”That you might come in and see me? Well, do. No harm in that, is there?

Say I'm going slow for a bit, that's all,” he added.

I agreed with him that to ”go slow” for a bit was a course he might with advantage have adopted some time ago, and, though considerably puzzled, I turned slowly away.