“Then I don’t think he’d do it,” declared loyal Lettice.
“Let us hear what you think he did,” said Mr. Upton.
“It’s not what I think; it’s what this man Baumgartner thinks, and his story that you ought to hear.”
And that which they now heard at second-hand was in fact a wonderfully true version—up to a point—of poor Pocket’s condition and adventures—with the sleep-walking and the shooting left out—from the early morning of his meeting with Baumgartner until the late afternoon of that day.
Baumgartner had actually described the boy’s long sleep in his chair; it was with the conversation when he awoke that the creative work began in earnest.
“That’s a good man!” said Mr. Upton, with unimaginable irony. “I’d like to take him by the hand—and those infernal Knaggses by the scruff of their dirty necks—and that old hag Harbottle by the hair!”
“I think of dear darling Tony,” said Lettice, in acute distress; “lying out all night with asthma—it was enough to kill him—or to send him out of his mind.”
“I wonder if it could have done that,” remarked Thrush, in a tone of serious speculation which he was instantly called upon to explain.
“What are you keeping back?” cried Lettice, the first to see that he had been keeping something all this time.
“Only something he’d kept back from them,” replied Thrush, with just a little less than his usual aplomb. “It was a surprise he sprang on them after waking; it will probably surprise you still more, Mr. Upton. You may not believe it. I’m not certain that I do myself. In the morning he had spoken of the Australian voyage as though you’d opposed it, but withdrawn your opposition—one moment, if you don’t mind! In the evening he suddenly explained that he was actually sailing in the Seringapatam, that his baggage was already on board, and he must get aboard himself that night!”