"Bored?"
"Yes, bored! Oh, I know it's all very well for you, who have your house to look after and Mrs. Austin to attend to, and all that kind of thing--that passes the time. But I've had nothing to do, and nobody to speak to, and I'm regularly sick of it. If this is the kind of thing one's to expect in country life, I shall go back to town to-morrow."
"Oh, you won't feel it when your friends come down, Charley; they'll be here the day after to-morrow. It's only because you're alone with me--and I'm not much of a companion for you, I know--that you're moped. Now let us see, what can you do to-morrow? Oh, I have it,--why not drive over and see your friends the Hammonds at Torquay?"
He had thought of that several times, but had not mentioned it because--well, he did not know why. But now his wife had started the subject; so of course it was all right. Still he hesitated.
"Well, I don't know--"
"Now I think it a capital idea. You can drive over there, and they'll most probably ask you to stop to dinner, and you'll have a fine moonlight drive back. And then the next day all the rest of the people will come down."
After this Sir Charles did not attempt, however faintly, to interpose an objection, and was in a very good temper for the remainder of the evening.
[CHAPTER XII.]
DRAWING COVER.
It was part of the crafty policy of the tall-hatted Mr. Griffiths to keep his employer Mr. Effingham in good humour, and to show that he was worth seeing occasionally; and it was with this end in view that Mr. Griffiths had spoken so confidently of Mr. Lyons's undoubted knowledge of the whereabouts of the forged bill and of his (Griffiths's) intention of seeking an immediate interview with Lyons. But, in sober truth, Mr. Griffiths merely had a faint notion that Lyons, from his previous connection with Tony Butler and his general acquaintance with the shady transactions of the deceased, might possibly give a guess as to the hands in which the bill then was, while he had not the remotest idea where to find the redoubtable Mr. Lyons himself, with a view to obtain from him the necessary information.