"I want your company."
"There's nothing I'd give you more willingly," said Jimmy; "I'm tired of it myself. But seriously, what is the matter?"
"Look out of the window," Browne replied. "Do you see that fog?"
"I've not only seen it, I have swallowed several yards of it," Foote answered. "I've been to tea with the Verneys in Arlington Street, and I've fairly had to eat my way here. But why should the weather irritate you? If you're idiot enough to come back from Cairo to London in March, I don't see that you've any right to complain. I only wish Fate had blessed me with the same chance of getting away."
"If she had, where would you go and what would you do?"
"I'd go anywhere and do anything. You may take it from me that the Bard was not very far out when he said that if money goes before, all ways lie open."
"If that's all you want, we'll very soon send it before. Look here, Jimmy; you've nothing to do, and I've less. What do you say to going off somewhere? What's your fancy—Paris, south of France, Egypt, Algiers? One place is like another to me."
"I don't want anything better than Algiers," said Jimmy. "Provided we go by sea, I am your obedient and humble servant to command."
Then, waving his hand towards the gloom outside, he added: "Fog, Rain, Sleet, and Snow, my luck triumphs, and I defy ye!"
"That's settled, then," said Browne, rising and standing before the fire. "I'll wire to Mason to have the yacht ready at Plymouth to-morrow evening. I should advise you to bring something warm with you, for we are certain to find it cold going down Channel and crossing the Bay at this time of the year. In a week, however, we shall be enjoying warm weather once more. Now I must be getting along. You don't happen to be coming my way, I suppose?"