“Bring me some grilled kidneys and look sharp,” she commanded very grandly.
Now all this time she and Mr. Withersq had been shuffling on their seats and making a few friendly grimaces toward the large party lower down the tabel, and doing such tricks as half smiles and looking as if they were going to nod in a tick. Yet the cold hump was all they got from that crowd gathered around the faint-looking man in the centre.
“You cant hardly say we’re making much of a hit here,” said Selia crossly: “You should have said your unckle Burt was dead. Try and get the nasty stuck up lot to talk, wont you?”
So at this Mr. Withersq mustered his heart up a bit and rapt on the tabel with a spoon until all looked towards him. “Hallo” he said to them all. “My unckle Burt being dead has [25] ]left me a few millions so why not be sports and chum up, eh?”
Oh what an icy bath our little friends then got from the stares of those ladys and men.
“I am Boom,” said the faint-looking man stroking his long hair with unction. “I do not think you are one of us. You do not understand.”
“O come!” cried our hero, getting his back up a bit although Selia was tramping on his feet under the festive board’s legs. “We are quite new to the game, I know, but for all that we know a countess or two. Be a sport old chappy. Let me tell the blackie to get you a coffee if you dont care for anything stronger.”
He thought those were two safe things to say, but he was also puzzeled by their looks towards him and more towards Selia whose rayment was so utterly not like theirs, and more so that her white robe was a bit dashed-looking with the rough night she had had.
[26] “Ah,” cried the young ladies in a voice like pidgeons, and the old ladies and the man. “How balderdash!” And they turned their faces away.
Selia let fall a scalding tear and ordered some pooched eggs to keep up her strength. At which Mr. Boom and his attending ladies got up hortily and stamped out very conseated which upset our couple largely.