“Yes, I think so; a man named Gurney something—a name with a hyphen—Gurney-Brown; that was it.”
“And when did the house change hands?” said Basil, looking up sharply. His strange eyes were burning brilliantly.
“I came in last month,” said the Major.
And at the mere word the criminal Northover suddenly fell into his great office chair and shouted with a volleying laughter.
“Oh! it's too perfect—it's too exquisite,” he gasped, beating the arms with his fists. He was laughing deafeningly; Basil Grant was laughing voicelessly; and the rest of us only felt that our heads were like weathercocks in a whirlwind.
“Confound it, Basil,” said Rupert, stamping. “If you don't want me to go mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me what all this means.”
Northover rose.
“Permit me, sir, to explain,” he said. “And, first of all, permit me to apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and unpardonable blunder, which has caused you menace and inconvenience, in which, if you will allow me to say so, you have behaved with astonishing courage and dignity. Of course you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand the loss.” And, tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the waste-paper basket and bowed.
Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. “But I don't even begin to understand,” he cried. “What bill? what blunder? what loss?”
Mr P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, thoughtfully, and with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer consideration, there were apparent about him other things beside a screwed moustache, especially a lean, sallow face, hawk-like, and not without a careworn intelligence. Then he looked up abruptly.