ONE:Two very auspicious pieces of news awaited him when he got home, and found his wife and Alice just about to go upstairs to dress. Alices slippers had come back from the shoe-makers, and could be presented to Mr Silverdale to-night, while, as by a miracle, a bit of salmon had been procured also. Lady Keeling had been driving by that little fishmongers in Drury Place, and there on the marble slab was quite a nice bit of salmon. She had brought it home herself on the box of the victoria, for fear of there being any mischance as to its delivery. Alice was even more excited, for nobody else had ever been permitted to work Master a pair of slippers, and Julia Fyson was coming to dinner, who, with eyes green{307} with jealousy, would see the presentation made. They were to be brought into the dining-room at the end of dinner, when Lady Keeling gave two short pressures to the electric bell that stood by her on the table, by the boy covered with buttons, wrapped round with endless swathings of paper. He was to present this bale to Mr Silverdale, saying that it was immediate and asking if there was any answer. Would it not be fun to see the astonished Master take off all those wrappings, and find the Maltese crosses within?
TWO:I found the clerks' mess a bunch of bright good fellows. After supper, stretched on the harsh turf under the June stars, with everyone's head (save mine) in some one's lap, we smoked, talked and sang. Only Gholson was called away, by duty, and so failed to hear the laborious jests got off at his expense. To me the wits were disastrously kind. Never had I been made a tenth so much of; I was even urged to sing "All quiet along the Potomac to-night," and was courteously praised when I had done so. But there is where affliction overtook me; they debated its authorship. One said a certain newspaper correspondent, naming him, had proved it to be the work--I forget of whom. But I shall never forget what followed. Two or three challenged the literary preeminence of that correspondent, and from as many directions I was asked for my opinion. Ah me! Lying back against a pile of saddles with my head in my hands, sodden with self-assurance, I replied, magnanimously, "Oh, I don't set up for a critic, but--well--would you call him a better man than Charlie Toliver?"
ONE:Maskee, my must go top-side
TWO:"So I have to sit down and submit to that tamely," she murmured. "You little white-faced cat, you pink doll, so you are going to get the best of me. We shall see; oh, yes, we shall see. If I could be somewhere where I could tear myself to pieces, where I could scream aloud and nobody could hear! If I could only face him now and smile and say honeyed words! Tomorrow, perhaps, but not tonight. Even I have my limits. . . . He's coming back!"
ONE:He would be dragged into the affair. In spite of himself, he would be obliged to go into some sort of witness box and declare that from the first he had thought the Clockwork man phenomenal, when, as a matter of fact, he had merely thought him a nuisance. But, as one of those who had first seen the strange figure on the hill, and as a medical man, he would be expected to make an intelligent statement. One had to be consistent about such things.
TWO:Well, I hope hell get a good meal this evening, said Mrs Keeling. Hes taking his supper with us.
