Even the impudence of Dalroy appeared for the instant dazed and stilled. He was staring forlornly up into the abyss of sky above him, as if, like Shelley, he could get inspiration from the last and purest clouds and the perfect hues of the ends of Heaven.
At last he said, in a soft and meditative voice, the single syllable,
“Sells!”
Pump looked at him sharply with a remarkable expression growing on his grim face. But the Doctor was far too rabidly rejoicing in his triumph to understand the Captain’s meaning.
“Sells alcohol, are the exact words,” he insisted, brandishing the blue oblong of the new Act of Parliament.
“So far as I am concerned they are inexact words,” said Captain Dalroy, with polite indifference. “I have not been selling alcohol, I have been giving it away. Has anybody here paid me money? Has anybody here seen anybody else pay me money? I’m a philanthropist just like Dr. Meadows. I’m his living image!”
Mr. Leveson and Dr. Meadows looked across at each other, and on the face of the first was consternation, and on the second a full return of all his terrors of the complicated law.
“I shall remain here for several weeks,” continued the Captain, leaning elegantly on the can, “and shall give away, gratis, such supplies of this excellent drink as may be demanded by the citizens. It appears that there is no such supply at present in this district, and I feel sure that no person present can object to so strictly legal and highly charitable an arrangement.”
In this he was apparently in error; for several persons present seemed to object to it. But curiously enough it was not the withered and fanatical face of the philanthropist Meadows, nor the dark and equine face of the official Leveson, which stood out most vividly as a picture of protest. The face most strangely unsympathetic with this form of charity was that of the ex-proprietor of Hugby’s Ales. His gooseberry eyes were almost dropping from his head and his words sprang from his lips before he could stop them.
“And you blooming well think you can come here like a big buffoon, you beast, and take away all my trade–”