“Oh, rot. Tell you what, if the young thing doesn’t turn up pretty promptly, we’ll call out the royal, holy, gold-fringed, pearl-tasselled, diamond-studded red parasols, and romp over in time to cadge some light refreshments from His Majesty. He has a cognac that will make you sit up and yelp with excitement; Napoleon—the real stuff, I pledge you my word. I suppose that it will be simply thrown away on you; half a nip of prune cordial sets the good old world going round for you Yankee martyrs these days, what?”
“Help!” invoked Ledyard with gloomy fervour. “Glad to know you get the comic sections regularly.”
“My priceless old thing, we get nothing whatever regularly; that’s one of the unholy charms. When my royal master and pupil feels any craving for mail and newspapers and other foreign frivolities he summons about twenty of the stalwart flowers of the masculine population and bids them oil and decorate and adorn themselves as befits the occasion and pop into the old lacquer sampans and yo heave ho on business of state. A few days or a few weeks later they turn up like Santa Claus bearing gifts, and I take all the pretty envelopes with an English postmark and put them in a nice tin can with a nice round stone, and drop ’em out of the window plop into the jolly old river—returned unopened, with many, many thanks! You never can tell when one of the tricky little devils might read ‘Anthony, come home, all is forgiven.’”
“But, my Lord, they must be worried half frantic! How do they know whether you’re alive or dead?”
“My dear chap, the only thing that the Bolinghams have ever worried about as far as little Anthony Christopher’s concerned was that he mightn’t have the grace to die before one of his waggish pranks landed him in jail or actually cost them something in pounds and shillings instead of mere lamentations! That’s why I gratified them by throwing over my share of the title when I came of age. Lord Anthony, what? No, thanks. But it’s all too clear that you don’t know Aunt Pamela and Aunt Clarissa, the last of the Bolingham vestals, or those splendid fellows, Roderick, Cyril, and Oliver.”
“Good-night, I’d hate to be as bitter as that about my worst enemy.” Ledyard’s honest drawl was chilled and thoughtful.
“Bitter? About my priceless family?” His careless mirth flooded the quiet room. “No, I swear that’s good! Why, my child, I revel in ’em; I have ever since Oliver used to jerk me out of bed at two in the morning to wallop the everlasting soul out of me because he’d lost at écarté—ragging along all the time about how it was his sacred duty as head of the Bolingham family to see that I learned not to disgrace it again by getting in through the scullery window at nine o’clock of a fine August night. I wasn’t more than three feet high, with a face no bigger than a button, but I couldn’t keep it straight then and I can’t keep it straight now when I think of that enormous red mug of his with all those noble sentiments pouring out of it—and the harder he walloped and the nobler he gabbled, the more I knew he’d lost. I was Satan’s own limb even in those days, and he generally managed to dig up some excellent and fruity reason for improving the witching hours with a boot-strap, but it undeniably was one on both of us that the night that he lost one hundred and thirty-seven golden guineas I’d been in bed in a state of grace since early dawn, with a nice bit of fever and a whopping toothache.”
“And just what did he do about that?” inquired Ledyard grimly. He did not seem to be as carried away by the humour of the situation as the Honourable Tony, whose carved dimples had become riotous at memory.
“Oh, you simply have to credit Noll for resource—he trounced the skin off me for adding hypocrisy to my list of iniquities! And there was I, innocent as a water baby of guilt or guile for twenty-four priceless hours—you’ll have to admit that it was a good one on me. I’ve taken jolly good care from that day to this that I didn’t let a night come around without deserving a simply first-rate caning, let me tell you!”
Ledyard made a gesture of fierce disgust.