'This? My friend's rug. I'm seeing a friend off—that's all. If you do not believe me, I'll show you the friend.' As he looked back at the bookstall he saw something which stiffened him once more with helpless horror: the man at the stall was trying to persuade Holroyd to buy a book for the journey—he was just dusting one now, a volume in a greenish cover with bold crimson lettering, before recommending it; and the book was a copy of the latest edition of 'Illusion,' the edition which bore Mark's name on the title-page! In his despair Mark did the very last thing he would otherwise have done—he rushed up to Holroyd and caught his arm. 'I say, old fellow, don't let them talk you into buying any of that rubbish. Look here, I—I want to introduce you to my uncle!'
'I wasn't asking the gentleman to buy no rubbish,' said the man at the bookstall, resenting the imputation. 'This is a book which is 'aving a large sale just now: we've sold as many as'—but here Mark succeeded in getting Vincent away and bringing him up to Mr. Lightowler.
'How are you, sir?' began that gentleman, with a touch of condescension in his manner. 'So it's only you that's goin' off? Well, that's a relief to my mind, I can tell yer; for when I saw Mark 'ere with that rug, I somehow got it into my mind that he was goin' to make a run for it. And there 'ud be a pretty thing for all parties—hey?'
'Your nephew very kindly came to see me off, that's all,' said Holroyd.
'Oh,' said Uncle Solomon, with a tolerant wave of his hand, 'I don't object to that, yer know, I've no objections to that—not that I don't think (between ourselves, mind yer) that he mightn't p'raps he better employed just now;' and here, to Mark's horror, he winked with much humorous suggestiveness at both of them.
'That is very likely,' said Holroyd.
'What I mean by saying he might be "better employed,"' continued Uncle Solomon, 'is that when——'
'Yes, yes, uncle,' Mark hastened to interpose, 'but on special occasions like these one can leave one's duties for a while.'
'Now there I think you make your mistake—you make too sure, Mark. I tell you (and I think your friend 'ere will bear me out in this) that, in your situation, it don't do to go leaving 'em in the lurch too often—it don't do!' Mark could stand no more of this.
'A lurch now,' he said—'what an odd expression that is! Do you know, I've often tried to picture to myself what kind of a thing a lurch may be. I always fancy it must be a sort of a deep hole. Have you any idea, Vincent?' Mark would have been too thankful to have been able to drop his uncle down a lurch of that description occasionally, particularly when he chose, as he did on this occasion, to take offence at his nephew's levity.