“Yes, dear boy, certainly.”
“Pass it along then and the lights. Hold hard a minute, Leslie.”
The latter ceased rowing as Pradelle handed a cigar and the matches to his friend.
“Will you take one, Mr Leslie?” said Pradelle.
“Thanks, no,” said Leslie quietly, and to the would-be donor’s great relief, for he had only two left. Then once more the rowing was resumed, Pradelle striking a match to light a cigar for himself, and then recollecting himself and throwing the match away.
“Well, we’re enjoying ourselves!” cried Harry after they had proceeded some distance in silence. “I say, Vic, say something!”
Pradelle had been cudgelling his brains for the past ten minutes, but the more he tried to find something à propos the more every pleasant subject seemed to recede.
In fact it would have been difficult just then for the most accomplished talker to have set all present at their ease, for Harry’s folly had moved his sister so that she feared to speak lest she should burst into a hysterical fit of weeping, and Madelaine, as she sat there with her lips compressed, felt imbued with but one desire, which took the form of the following words:
“Oh, how I should like to box his ears!”
“Getting dry, Leslie?” said Harry after a long silence.