It is, to confess the truth, a rather lame story, very lamely told; and at the close of it Wyndham looks at his friend, at least at as much of him as he can see, Crosby being now enclouded in smoke. He had been smoking very vigorously, indeed, all through the recital, and there had been moments when he had seemed to be choking, but whether altogether from the smoke Wyndham felt uncertain.
‘Well, that’s the story,’ says he at last, flinging himself back in his chair.
There is a short silence.
‘Then I suppose you could not think of a better one?’ says Crosby, beginning to choke again.
‘Oh, I knew how you’d take it—how any fellow would take it,’ says Wyndham wrathfully. ‘I can see that there isn’t a soul in the world who would believe such an idiotic story as mine. But there it is, and you can take it or leave it as you like. But for all that, Crosby, you ought to know me well enough to understand that I should not trouble myself to lie to you unless there was occasion for it.’
At this Crosby gives way to a roar.
‘Well, I honestly believe there’s no occasion now,’ says he; ‘and for the rest, dear old chap! of course I believe every word you have said. You must be thoroughly hipped, or you’d have seen how I was enjoying the joke. Come, it seems we have both had adventures in Arcadia, and that we have both come in rather sorry fashion out of them.’
‘Oh, you—you can afford to speak of adventures,’ says Wyndham ruefully. ‘You’re accustomed to them, but I—I confess this last and first has been enough for me. You who have faced lions——’
‘Not so many, after all,’ interrupts Crosby, laughing. ‘Don’t magnify them like that. I’ve shot a few, I confess, but I only seem to remember seven. One does remember them when one’s face to face with them. But there is not such a lot to remember, after all.’
‘It would serve, so far as I am concerned,’ says Wyndham frankly. ‘Indeed, I think I could do with one—always supposing he was dead. As for how I feel now, it is as though I were in a den of them, and I doubt if I’ll come as well out of it as Daniel did.’