“David,” he said over the straps, “has had his phases of idiotcy from my first knowledge of him.”
At this the culprit went into a fresh fit.
“No, but,” he said, when he could recover his voice—“on your honour d’you believe the girl’s statement, Tuke?”
“Why not? If I’m credulous, I’m happy; and there’s the true philosophy of life in a nutshell.”
He was struggling with his own imp of merriment. The other had set it squiggling; so that he was fain to look upon all this portentous business from a new irreverent point of view.
“And that Cutwater kept the jewel in his eye-hole,” persisted Sir David, “for all the world to see? And did he sacrifice the sound article to accommodate it?”
“That I cannot account for. He was blind on one side before ever you saw him.”
“You’ve got him to the life, I perceive. And he wore a dummy optic, no doubt, and substituted t’other, all ingeniously painted, for it when he conceived the resplendent idea?”
“I confess I never thought it out! But you’ve done it masterly.”
“Ain’t I? What a genius I am!—almost as good a one as Cutwater (eh, Luvaine?), that was strung up on the downs and a fortune in his head for any crow to peck at. You’d have given an eye for an eye to know that, wouldn’t you? But it needed a crazed girl to see into the creature’s methods, and bag the prize when it fell, while all the rest of us were hunting counter.”