“Why—Jack—” he stammered a moment later, in evident surprise. “You don’t look badly at all!”
“Did they say I was dead?” enquired Ralston, with a grim smile. “Take a cigar. Sit down. Tell me all about my funeral.”
Miner laughed as he carefully cut off the end of the cigar and lit it—a sort of continuous little gurgling laugh, like the purling of a brook.
“My dear boy,” he said, blowing out a quantity of smoke, and curling himself up in the easy chair, “you’re the special edition of the day. The papers are full of you—they’re selling like hot cakes everywhere—your fight with Tom Shelton, the champion light weight—and your turning up in the arms of two policemen—talk of a ‘jag!’ Lord!”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
John looked at Miner quietly for a few seconds, without saying anything. The little man was evidently lost in admiration of the magnitude of his friend’s ‘jag,’ as he called it.
“I say, Frank,” said Ralston, at last, “it’s all a mistake, you know. It was a series of accidents from beginning to end.”
“Oh—yes—I suppose so. You managed to accumulate quite a number of accidents, as you say.”
Ralston was silent again. He was well aware of the weight of the evidence against him, and he wished to enter upon his explanation by degrees, in order that it might be quite clear to Miner.