“You are pleased to be facetious, gentlemen. It is all little of a jesting matter to me. I will not drink a murdering thief.”
“Why,” said Blythewood, “he might retaliate by disputing your title, since he had the stone in his eye from the first moment of his hearing of it.”
He chuckled joyously over his own pleasantry; but the other would condescend to no answer but a wave of the hand to dismiss the subject.
“Do you drink the night out?” he said. “Mr. Tuke” (he turned sombrely to his host), “I would be loth to presume upon your hospitality; but, sir—sir, I must venture to hint I am here for a purpose that is not yet satisfied.”
Something like a muttered oath escaped from Tuke’s lips. He, however, forced his good-humour to the front.
“Why, Captain Luvaine,” he said, “I assumed that a travelled guest would prefer to postpone business to the morning.”
“I cannot look upon this as business, sir, in the ordinary sense—no more than the signing of a reprieve, every moment in the delay of which is torture to him most concerned.”
“Well, well—if you regard it in that light.”
Blythewood protested against this unseemly wet-blanketing of a convivial meeting; but he was graciously overborne by his host, who rose and rang the bell.
“Send Mr. Whimple to me,” he told the servant who answered the summons.