He bowed in his corner. "I trust you will not make a more illustrious acquaintance still," he said dryly.
"Why," said I, for I knew what he meant, "you forget that at your invitation I am here in pursuit of our common enemy."
"True," he said, considering. "It has a smooth face upon it. I perceive you, sir, to be a gentleman of your wits."
Now 'twas my turn to bow, and indeed he was not wrong, for it has ever been my good fortune to find a way out of a difficulty when others would stand agape, like oafs and asses. But he went on, in his still voice: "But now that I see our friend, the common enemy, as you put it, enjoyed a confederate, it appears I must reconsider the circumstances. In fine, his wager fails—"
"I am no confederate," I broke in.
"And thus there is no necessity that he receive the penalty which I had designed as a wedding-present for him," he finished, not appearing to heed me.
"Sir Damon, I have told you that I am but an onlooker," said I.
He elevated his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
"Rip me," said I, angrily, "I never clapped eyes on the fellow till the quarter-of-an-hour ere you came up, and I will be damned if I should tick him off from Adam did I see him again."