“I—I want one to keep,” stated Mr. Clark, shyly.
“To keep?” exclaimed Mr. Tridge.
“Sam,” observed the perspicacious Mr. Dobb, “you’re a gay old dorg!”
“Did you see ’er look at me?” demanded Mr. Clark, in a burst of senile vanity. “Straight at me!”
“I’d just as soon be looked at by a sack of flour!” declared Mr. Tridge; and instantly there arose a quarrel so bitter that, in the interests of peace, Mr. Dobb had to take the extreme step of curtailing it by offering to pay for refreshment at some convenient hostelry outside.
Mr. Tridge, closing at once with this invitation, rose to follow Mr. Dobb from the building, and so did Mr. Lock. Mr. Clark, however, created a blank amazement by returning an unprecedented answer to such an offer.
“We might be late and miss a bit of the next hact,” he explained; and his companions, after solemnly shaking their heads at each other for some moments, went silently away.
They did not return in time for the next act, nor for the next act after that, though such were Mr. Clark’s blissful preoccupations of mind that he did not notice the defection of his comrades until he was passing through the lobby at the conclusion of the performance. And even then he went back into the auditorium to look for his friends, and was much mystified by their disappearance.
It was three days later ere Mr. Clark and Mr. Dobb again met. Mr. Dobb, finding himself near the ferry, had strolled thither to have a few words with his old shipmate. To his surprise, he found a substitute on duty in the ferry-boat, and discovered from that gentleman that for the last three days Mr. Clark, utilizing his favourite explanation of colic, had been making holiday and seemingly intended to make holiday for several days longer.
Mr. Dobb, learning that the present whereabouts of Mr. Clark were unknown to his informant, strolled back into the town, and, at the corner of the High Street, he encountered Mr. Clark.