"She's giving us the high sign now," he said, in a low voice. "Don't turn round too obviously now, but have a look. No, wait a minute. It's no secret stuff. She wants us to come over to the table."
"De odder people haff got de emerald?" inquired Valvick, peering over his shoulder. "Haa! Den dat iss all right. Ay tell you ay wass worried."
"Lord! I hope so," said Morgan, fervently. "But Peggy doesn't look too pleased. Finish your breakfast, Skipper, and then join us. Get ready, Curt. Did you finish that article?"
"Sure I did," retorted Warren. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth as they moved out across the dance floor towards the other table. "And don't go making any cracks about my education either. I can tell you all about it. It seems Peggy's uncle is the goods. As a classic dramatist he is an eight-cyclindered wow, and there's been nobody like him since Moliere. If any impertinent criticism of his jewelled lines can be made by one, one would say a certain je ne sais quoi. I should possibly suggest the introduction of certain deft touches of realism into the speech of, say, so human and breathing a figure as the Knight Roland or the crafty Banhambra, Sultan of the Moors which would lend an element of graphic power…."
"An element," said the loud, concise voice of Mr. Leslie Perrigord in the flesh, "of graphic power. And that is all."
Morgan looked him over as he sat stiffly upright at the breakfast-table, holding a fork with its prongs against the cloth and e-nun-ci-a-ting his words through stiff jaws. There was nothing effeminate or lackadaisical about Mr. Leslie Perrigord, that element which most irritated Morgan in the species intellectual. Mr. Perrigord looked as though he could pull his weight in a crew or handle a skittish horse. A tall lath with thin blond hair, a hooked nose, and a mummified eye, he simply talked. He looked at nothing in particular. He seemed far away. If you had not seen the feathery blond moustache floating as in an icy breeze, you would have sworn it was an effect of ventriloquism. But (once started) he showed no disposition to leave off talking.
A measured stream of hooey flowing from Mr. Perrigord's lips in concise cadences was checked by Peggy only when it became necessary for Perrigord to wind himself up with ice-water. She said:
"Oh, I say, excuse me! I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I must present two very good friends of mine. Mr. Warren, Mr. Morgan… "
"De-do?" said Mrs. Perrigord, sepulchrally.
"Oh?" said Mr. Perrigord. He seemed vaguely annoyed. He had just kicked Shakespeare in the eye and mashed the hat of Ben Jonson; and Morgan felt he was ruffled at being interrupted. "Oh? Delighted, I'm sure. I was — ah — mentioning some of the more elementary points, en passant, in the talk I have been asked to deliver at the ship's concert to-night." He smiled thinly. "But — ah — I fear I shall bore you. It is merely a talk serving as an introductory speech to the performance of M. Fortinbras's marionettes. I fear—"