'Well!' said Lewis Gordon, when in silence they had reached the road again. 'You may call that amusement, Keene, if you like; I don't. When I get home, I shall have a sherry and bitters.'
'He is rather a gruesome old chap,' admitted George cheerfully. 'I felt a bit creepy myself the first time I heard that song--by the way, Miss Tweedie, talking of creepiness, did I tell you about the Potter's Thumb? I didn't! Oh,--that is really a grand tale.' He told it, happily, as an excellent sequel to the show, while Dan, in one of his best moods, piled on the imaginative agony about Hodinuggur generally, until Lewis announced his intention of returning to the palace by the longer way. He would be late, of course, but that was preferable to having no appetite for dinner!
'By Jove! seven o'clock,' cried Dan, looking at his watch. 'And you and I, George, have to get over to the bungalow. We must run for it.'
Rose watched them racing down the path, laughing and talking as they ran, with a troubled look.
'Fine specimens, Miss Tweedie,' remarked Lewis after a pause. 'I don't think you need fear their cracking in the fire.'
'I--I--' faltered Rose, taken aback by his comprehension.
'Am Scotch! That's sufficient excuse. I notice we seldom get rid of our native superstition. Besides, it was uncanny--the yard-measure and the Potter's Thumb, and that horse-leech of a woman, who was never satisfied. I felt it myself.'
She knew he was speaking down to her as a nervous woman; yet she did not resent it, because it was a distinct relief not to be taken seriously.
'I wish they had not been measured, for all that,' she persisted. 'You will own it was odd, won't you?'
'Not so odd as Dan himself! He has been cracked ever since I knew him. And Keene is one of the sterling sort, certain of success; besides, he measured himself! Now, before you go upstairs to dress, if your Scotch blood is still curdling, as mine is, have a half of sherry and bitters with me. Crows roost with crows, you remember.'