“Lay you ten shillings it doesn’t go round in thirty-six seconds,” said Sir John.
“Thirty-four’s record. Not good enough. I’ll back him to do two rounds in seventy-five for the same money.”
“Done. Start the watch.”
Both men put down their money and kept one eye on the stop-watch and one on the starting-point. The lizard was round in 35.5 and going strongly. A few feet further on it paused as if it were saying to itself, “Let’s see—where did I put my umbrella?” Then it turned right round and went back, presumably, to fetch it.
“Damn,” said Dr Pryce, and put the lizard tenderly back in its box again.
Sir John laughed and slipped the two half-sovereigns into his waistcoat pocket. “Want another?” he asked.
“No thanks,” said the doctor. “My beast’s got into one of his absent-minded moods. He’s like that sometimes. He might beat the record, or he might go to sleep in the first patch of sunshine.”
The club was beginning to fill up now. In the reading-room two or three members turned over the out-of-date papers—but there is really no date in Faloo. Little groups on the lawn in front of the house sipped cocktails. Lord Charles Baringstoke went from group to group with his usual plaintive, “Anybody goin’ to stand me anythin’?” Thomas was fixing the carte du jour in the frame over the dining-room mantelpiece; the fireplace was filled with pot-roses in bloom, had never known a fire, and did not possess a chimney. Two other English waiters and many native servants bustled to and fro.
Sir John and Dr Pryce took their Manhattans on the verandah. “Do you know,” said Sir John, “I almost thought you were going to elect King Smith this morning.”