“I shan’t want it, thank you,” he said quickly; and added with stammering hesitation: “You see, I’ve given up the idea of taking those fellows out.”
“All right. But all I was going to suggest was that you should come for another outing with me and perhaps get your sister to join you.”
“Oh, I’ll do that any time—but not to-morrow, or—or the next day. Any other time. I know Miralda would go—at least—if——” and he stopped.
“Well, we’ll fix a day soon,” I said, and let him go.
Evidently something serious was to take place on the morrow. What could it be? Was it something I ought to know for Miralda’s sake? Clearly the sooner I could get her away the better.
Later in the evening Burroughs told me a curious incident. We were smoking, and he broke one of the pauses with a sudden laugh. “A rum thing happened yesterday,” he said, in response to my glance of surprise.
“Well?”
“Say, is the king of this benighted country in the habit of playing the Haroun Al Raschid game?”
“I don’t know, Jack.”
“Well, it looks like it. I was on the Quay yesterday and some of the loafers began looking at me and nudging one another and chattering—you know what beggars they are for that—and the thing went on until there were two or three dozen of ’em gawking around. I was walking away when hang me if the whole lot didn’t off with the caps and sing out ‘Long Live the King.’ I looked round for the King, but he wasn’t there, and when I was going back in the launch to the Stella afterwards, one of the hands told me the crowd had taken me for him, and were pretty huffy because I hadn’t acknowledged the cheer. Wish I’d tumbled to it, I’d have played up to it.”