“Oh, is that you, Pirie?” said the man at the window. “I thought it was my brother.” The other stood for a moment, with his back to the fire. Then he lounged to the window, stretching his arms as he moved. He also was tall, but with a scattering of gray in his hair.
“Beastly black morning,” he commented in drowsy tones, after a prolonged observation of the prospect. “Might as well stopped in bed.”
“Well, go back then!” snapped the other. “I didn’t make the rotten weather, did I?” This was wanton ill-temper. The elder man also began drumming with his nails on the window. “Turn it up, Eddy,” he remonstrated, smoothly enough, but with a latent snarl in his tone. “I don’t like it.”
The younger man moved his head, as if he would have looked his companion in the face. Then he stared away again, out of the window.
“Beaters been waitin’ half an hour already,” he grumbled, sulkily. “What’s the good of makin’ a time if you don’t keep it?”
“I didn’t make any time,” responded Major Pirie with curtness. Upon reflection, he added: “What does it matter about the beaters?”
There seemed no answer to this, and for several minutes nothing was said. Finally the younger man thought of something. “I say,” he began, and after an instant’s pause went on: “It’d suit me better not to be called ‘Eddy’ among the men, d’ye see? That fellow Burlington began it last night—he got it from you—and I don’t like it. When we’re alone, of course, that’s different.”
Major Pirie laughed—a dry, brief, harsh laugh—and swung around on his heels. “Your man didn’t get those sausages I asked for, after all,” he remarked, going back to the dishes at the fender.
“Probably couldn’t,” said Mr. Edward, “or else,” he added, “wouldn’t. I never saw such a houseful of brutes and duffers. I’m keen to shunt the lot of ‘em, and they know it, the beggars. You’d think they’d try to suck up to me, but they don’t, they haven’t got brains enough.”
The major had brought a plate from the table, and was filling it from under the covers on the hearth. “Shall I ring for the tea?” he asked.