“No, my God, not before we’ve had breakfast!” replied George. His reluctant grin dawned; he thrust out his hand. “I’m sorry, Sherry! Never meant to do it, you know, and really there wasn’t a mite of harm in it.”
“Oh, go to the devil!” responded Sherry, gripping his hand. “If ever I met such a fellow! Here, did you think to order breakfast, Ferdy?”
Chapter Fourteen
THE LAST SHREDS OF ANIMOSITY VANISHED over the substantial breakfast provided by the landlord of an adjacent inn; and so mellowing was the effect of the ale with which the four young gentlemen washed down vast quantities of beef, ham, and pigeon pie, that Sherry had no hesitation in allowing his friends to share the jest of his having actually gone to the lengths of drawing up his Will on the previous day. George shouted with laughter when he heard about this, and said that if he had known that Sherry could hit a tree when he aimed at it he would very likely have drawn up his own Will. This naturally put Sherry on his mettle, and he at once challenged George to a shooting contest, to be held at Manton’s Gallery. Mr Ringwood and Mr Fakenham, always ready for a side bet, objected that unless George were to be suitably handicapped no one in his senses would bet against him, and the rest of the meal passed in arguing over all the more impossible forms of handicap which suggested themselves to four gentlemen in the sort of high spirits into which sudden relief from twenty-four hours of anxiety had plunged them. When they finally left the inn, Ferdy and Mr Ringwood went off together in Ferdy’s tilbury, and George took up Sherry in his phaeton, promising to set him down in Half Moon Street.
“Kitten will be wanting to be assured of your safety,” he grinned.
“Oh, she don’t know anything about it!” replied Sherry.
George made no remark upon this for a moment or two, but when he had thought the matter over he decided to be open with Sherry. He said frankly: “Yes, she does. Wasn’t going to tell you, but now I come to think of it your coachman knows, and ten to one if you heard of it through him you’d be wanting to cut my liver out again. It was Gil’s fault. Ferdy’s too. The silly gudgeons thought I meant to kill you. They must think I’m a rum ’un! What must they do but go off to tell Kitten the whole! The lord knows what they thought she could do, for even Ferdy can’t have supposed you’d rat, and they can’t either of them have meant that she should come to see me — which is what she did do.”
“What?” gasped Sherry.
George nodded. “Yesterday morning. You know, Sherry, you ought to keep an eye on your Kitten. Not my business, but she’s such a baby there’s no knowing what she’ll do next. Came to beg me not to meet you.”
“If that isn’t like Kitten!” exclaimed Sherry. “You know, George, there’s no keeping pace with her at all! How was I to guess I ought to have warned her to take a hackney, if she meant to call at a man’s lodgings?”