Truth was he had stared at me so and seemed so oddly surprised, I just worked off some jolly apologetic rubbish and got out. Pugsley thought I must have violated some rotten, silly law of commercial ethics—that sort of thing, you know; declared that his attorney had had the dashed impertinence once to ask him about some investments, so he got another man and gave him a power of what's-its-name. Never was bothered now, he said, by checks or reports or any boring distractions of that sort; this man just kept him supplied with money, and once in a while he scrawled his name on something—all he had to do. Devilish simple, you see, but then Pugsley is so ingenious, so—oh, clever, you know.
"H'm!" coughed the judge, "Er—h'm!" And I stopped snapping the cover of my cigarette case, thinking he was about to say something, but he did not look up. By Jove, how I wished that he were really busy, so I might slip out without danger of offending him! But I was afraid to chance it—did so want to rub him right, don't you know, on account of Frances. Knew he was still feeling a bit plucked over his slip of the tongue—showed plainly he was bothered, you know; you could tell by his puckered brows and the way he kept clearing his throat. So meantime, knowing that the best thing was to appear unconscious—just give him time, you know—I fell carelessly to jingling some coins in my pocket and tapping my foot upon the hardwood, as I hummed a devilish neat little air from La Juive that I almost knew by heart:
"Qu'il, l'apprenne de vous?
Hélas, je vous implore, bénissez mon époux—"
By Jove, I had just got that far, when he shook his head with a kind of snort, threw down his pen, and got to his feet, facing me with a sickly smile.
"I am going to ask you to excuse me, my dear Lightnut"—came right out frankly like that, you know! "But the fact is—" he opened and shut his watch—nervously, you know—"I have just realized how—"
But I stopped him—couldn't let him go on, of course: "Oh, I say, you know! Not another word, my dear Judge—I don't care a jolly hang, dash it!" And to show him, I smiled, got out a cigarette, and perched kind of sidewise on the edge of the table. "I'm not a bit sensitive, don't you know!"
He stared. "Indeed, no—I see you are not!" he said warmly.
I drew a light a bit airily. "Of course," I puffed, "what you are thinking of is your servant, but I"—I shot him a light wink—"I've got to think a little about my own affair, don't you—"
"Lightnut!" He caught me by the arms, his face reddened almost black. "My dear boy, ten thousand pardons! I assure you—"
"That's just all right, Judge," I reassured him soothingly. "All I am holding out for is just to be sure we understand each other about Frances—that I may be sure I have your authority—"