Part 115 (2/2)
”They're my own pet pair,” Torpenhow said. ”I was just going to put them on myself.”
”All your reprehensible selfishness. Just because you see me happy for a minute, you want to worry me and stir me up. Find another pair.”
”Good for you that d.i.c.k can't wear your clothes, Torp. You two live communistically,” said the Nilghai.
”d.i.c.k never has anything that I can wear. He's only useful to sponge upon.”
”Confound you, have you been rummaging round among my clothes, then?”
said d.i.c.k. ”I put a sovereign in the tobacco-jar yesterday. How do you expect a man to keep his accounts properly if you----”
Here the Nilghai began to laugh, and Torpenhow joined him.
”Hid a sovereign yesterday! You're no sort of financier. You lent me a fiver about a month back. Do you remember?” Torpenhow said.
”Yes, of course.”
”Do you remember that I paid it you ten days later, and you put it at the bottom of the tobacco?”
”By Jove, did I? I thought it was in one of my colour-boxes.”
”You thought! About a week ago I went into your studio to get some 'baccy and found it.”
”What did you do with it?”
”Took the Nilghai to a theatre and fed him.”
”You couldn't feed the Nilghai under twice the money--not though you gave him Army beef. Well, I suppose I should have found it out sooner or later. What is there to laugh at?”
”You're a most amazing cuckoo in many directions,” said the Nilghai, still chuckling over the thought of the dinner. ”Never mind. We had both been working very hard, and it was your unearned increment we spent, and as you're only a loafer it didn't matter.”
”That's pleasant--from the man who is bursting with my meat, too. I'll get that dinner back one of these days. Suppose we go to a theatre now.”
”Put our boots on,--and dress,--and wash?” The Nilghai spoke very lazily.
”I withdraw the motion.”
”Suppose, just for a change--as a startling variety, you know--we, that is to say we, get our charcoal and our canvas and go on with our work.”
Torpenhow spoke pointedly, but d.i.c.k only wriggled his toes inside the soft leather moccasins.
”What a one-ideaed clucker that is! If I had any unfinished figures on hand, I haven't any model; if I had my model, I haven't any spray, and I never leave charcoal unfixed overnight; and if I had my spray and twenty photographs of backgrounds, I couldn't do anything tonight. I don't feel that way.”
”Binkie-dog, he's a lazy hog, isn't he?” said the Nilghai.
”Very good, I will do some work,” said d.i.c.k, rising swiftly. ”I'll fetch the Nungapunga Book, and we'll add another picture to the Nilghai Saga.”
”Aren't you worrying him a little too much?” asked the Nilghai, when d.i.c.k had left the room.
”Perhaps, but I know what he can turn out if he likes. It makes me savage to hear him praised for past work when I know what he ought to do. You and I are arranged for----”
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