CHAPTER XXX
EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON
You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and glower down at its emptiness—and repeat the motions in a different order. He must be theatrical even without an audience.
But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it.
The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far away. In a little while came the beat of rain—slow, big drops. That was soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke.
Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who admonished her and made her worse.
Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!"
"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr.
Waverton, in much agitation.
"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. Waverton's.
"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a great clatter of crockery.