“Hopeful? Of course. I dare say he’ll behave very well.”
“I daren’t, old man; but I’m hopeful that he’ll fall out with a sore foot or a sprained ankle through stumbling over a stone or bush. That’s the sort of fellow who does—”
“Pst! We’re talking too much,” whispered Lennox, to turn the conversation, which troubled him, for inwardly he felt ready to endorse every word his comrade had uttered.
“Oh, I’m talking in a fly’s whisper. What a fellow you are! Always ready to defend anybody.”
“Pst!”
“There you go again with your Pst! Just like a sick locomotive.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t hear anything. Oh yes, I do. That howl. There it goes again. One of those beautiful hyenas. I say, Drew.”
“Yes?”
“My old people at home live in one of those aesthetic Surrey villages full of old maids and cranks who keep all kinds of useless dogs and cats. The old folks are awfully annoyed by them of a night. When I’ve been down there staying for a visit I’ve felt ready to jump out of bed and shell the neighbourhood with jugs, basins, and water-bottles. But lex talionis, as the lawyers call it—pay ’em back in their own coin. What a game it would be to take the old people home a nice pet hyena or a young jackal to serenade the village of a night!”