“I say! That’s rough luck!” said Tom.
“It is by his own wish. I did violence to my sense of what is right and proper, and invited him to a place at our board. He showed, I must say, a commendable sense of his duty in the matter. ‘I’m M’Cracken and your stoker, sir,’ he said, ’till we get back to England.’”
“May I suggest,” said Sir Mark Ingleton, “that a sense of the unfitness of his attire also weighed with him?”
“We can soon alter that,” said Tom. “He’s about my build; I’ll go and rig him out in one of my suits.”
“Ve shall not vait to begin?” said Schwab anxiously, holding knife and fork upright on the table.
“Mr. Oliphant will doubtless pardon us,” replied Sir Mark blandly.
In a quarter of an hour Tom returned with Oliphant in white ducks and blue serge.
“Still is zere somezink left,” said Schwab. “I feel moch better, zough I vish ze table vould not move. Do not fill your glass quite full, sir; it vould slop over, and zat vould be pity.”
“Where’s Abdul?” asked Tom, as he sat down.
“With the men, forward,” said Mr. Greatorex.