“Call it the Confraternity of the Shipwrecked Mariners,” said Brian, possibly in order to save Beryl the trouble of answering the idiotic question. And as though to render the diversion more complete still, something between an exclamation and a groan escaped from the master of the house at the other end of the table.
“Why, what is it, father?” cried Beryl, half starting up in alarm.
“Nothing, dear. Only this confounded rheumatism. Am all ache from head to foot. Sharper twinge than usual—couldn’t help singing out. Must have caught a chill on top of it.”
“Father, you must go to bed at once,” said Beryl decisively. “Brian and I will come and look after you.”
“Well, I think I will. Good-night everybody. Trask, you’ll excuse me.”
Septimus Matterson was, as he said, anything but well, and his early retirement rather put a damper on the evening from Trask’s point of view, especially as Beryl was out of the room looking after her father. Moreover, Trask prided himself on his capacity for singing comic songs, which he accompanied himself, and, to give the devil his due, uncommonly well. But under the circumstances there was no demand for this form of entertainment to-night, and it was rather earlier than usual when we found ourselves alone together, he and I, for he had needed no pressure to be induced to stay the night, and had been allotted a shakedown in the same room with me.
Now, Trask was one of those men—of whom there are plenty, and women too—who are entirely different when there is no gallery to play to; in a word, Trask alone with one was entirely different to Trask showing off before a crowd, and in fact might have been taken for an ordinarily decent fellow, before you became alive to a little trick he had of engaging you in what would seem at the time quite an interesting conversation or discussion, only to reproduce with variations any idea you might so have expressed, in order to turn you into ridicule when he should next get an audience. But I, who had already experienced this idiosyncrasy, confined conversation with its exploiter to the merest commonplace, wherefore conversation soon languished. Trask was asleep, and I was just drowsing off, when a tap at the door and Brian’s voice started me wide awake again.
“What’s the row? Anything wrong?” I said.
“Wrong? Yes, very much wrong,” was the answer, and striking a match he proceeded to light my candle.