“So did I,” said the doctor. “Believe we ought to have done it too. He’s better than that worm Charley Baringstoke, or a boozer like Cyril Mast, or a mean badger like Bassett. Better than most of us, in fact. It was Bassett put me off it.”
“So I noticed,” said Sir John.
“Interesting man too,” said Dr Pryce. “Has he really got these ideas—the ambitious poppycock that you talked about?”
“If he had, would you let him make a start with them?” asked Sir John, enigmatically.
“I would not,” said the doctor.
“I think you’re the man I want. We’ll talk about it at luncheon. Our curry should be ready by now.”
The meal was called luncheon, but for all classes on the island luncheon was the principal meal of the day; in fact, no regular club-dinner was served in the evening. Most of the members were gathered in the dining-room now, but a small table had been reserved for the President and Dr Soames Pryce. At the next table Mr Mandelbaum, a round-faced German of great girth, was entertaining Lord Charles Baringstoke, who under alcoholic influence was being betrayed into confidences. “You see,” he whined loudly, “it wasn’t so much that I went a mucker, because of course all my people went muckers; it was the particular kind of mucker that I went.” The German passed a fat hand over his salient moustache and addressed him as “my poor frent.”
Sir John and the doctor conducted their conversation in more discreet tones.
“Do you think,” said Sir John, “that the King really meant to be elected to-day? Did he sound you?”
“He’s not on those terms,” said Pryce.