"May I offer you a cigarette?" he queried, picking up a box from the mantelpiece and proffering to Dick Little one of his own cigarettes.
Gimp seemed to be under the impression that he had come to entertain us and he began to talk. His sentences invariably began with "Haaa! I remember in 1885," or some other date, and we quickly learned that with him dates were a danger signal.
His idea of conversation was a monologue. As we sat listening, we wondered how we should ever stop the flow of eloquence. He plunged into a memory involving a quotation from a drama in which, as far as we could gather, he had made one of the greatest hits the theatrical world had ever witnessed. His enthusiasm brought him to his feet. We sat and smoked and listened, mutely conscious that the situation was beyond us.
Angell Herald was the only man present, besides Gimp himself, who seemed to be satisfied. The rest of us felt that there was only one hope, and that lay in Bindle, who was unaccountably late. Bindle, we felt sure, would be able to rise to the occasion, and he did.
Gimp had reached a most impassioned scene in which the heroine denounces the villain, who is a coiner. Bindle entered the room unobserved by Gimp. For a few moments he stood watching the scene with intense interest. Gimp had reached the climax of the scene in which the heroine says to the villain, "Go! Your heart is as base as the coins you make." He paused, pointing dramatically in the direction of Windover.
"'Ullo! 'Amlet," said Bindle genially from behind.
Gimp span round as if he had been shot, and gazed down at Bindle in indignant surprise.
"Cheero! Where'd you spring from?" continued Bindle.
"Sir?" said Gimp.
"Your wrong," said Bindle, "it's plain Joe Bindle, Sir Joseph later perhaps; but not yet."