“The what?” said Markham.
“Hydraulic experiments. The patent pump of the Dominant Trumpeter was being tested upon me. Experiments failed, not through any incapacity of the pump, but through the contents of the reservoir worked upon not running free enough in the right direction.”
“Was Mr. Harwood here?”
“He was, my boy. And he wanted to know all about how we lived in Melbourne.”
“And you told him——”
“To get up a little earlier in the morning when he wants to try his pumping apparatus. But what made you give that start? Don't you know that all I could tell would be some of our old larks, and he wouldn't have thought anything the worse of you on account of them? Hang it all, you don't mean to say you're going into holy orders, that you mind having any of the old times brought back? If you do, I'm afraid that it will be awkward for you if I talk in my ordinary way. I won't bind myself not to tell as many of our larks as chime in with the general conversation. I only object on principle to be pumped.”
“Talk away,” said Oswin spasmodically. “Tell of all our larks. How could I be affected by anything you may tell of them?”
“Bravo! That's what I say. Larks are larks. There was no manslaughter nor murder. No, there was no murder.”
“No, there was no murder,” said Markham.
The other burst into a laugh that startled a Malay in the street below.