He was a pleasant-faced man; clean-shaven, rosy-complexioned, grey-haired, with something of the air and carriage of a country squire; a pleasant-tempered man too, although he appeared to be in a pet of some sort, and fairly fired up when the first lieutenant (a little sarcastically, I thought) ventured to hope that he had been enjoying himself.
"Nothing of the sort, sir! It's the first—" Captain Suckling checked himself. "I was going to say," he resumed more quietly, "that it's the first prize-fight I have ever attended and will be the last. But in point of fact there has been no fight."
"Indeed, sir?" I heard the first lieutenant murmur compassionately.
"The men did not turn up; neither they nor their trainers. The whole meeting, in fact, was what is vulgarly called a bilk. But where is Sir John?"
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"His Excellency—you have made him comfortable?"
"His Excellency, sir, has not turned up. In fact," said the first lieutenant prettily, "I fancy that His Excellency, too, must have done what is—er—vulgarly termed a bilk."
Captain Suckling stared from his lieutenant to the shore, and from the shore to the horizon.
"The boat waited no less than five hours for him yesterday, and in the end brought off his valet with some luggage. He gave us to understand that Sir John and his Secretary would follow in a shore-boat. This was twenty-four hours ago, and they have not appeared."
"Extraordinary!"