Mr Bunker opened his eyes. “That’s the way my money goes? From your anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?”
“No, I assure you, Mr Essington,” said Twiddel, eagerly; “I give you my word.”
“I shall judge by the circumstances rather than your word, sir. It is perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for nothing.” He looked at them both as though they were curious animals, and then continued: “You, Mr Welsh, are a really wonderfully typical rascal. I am glad to have met you. You can now put on your coat and go.” As Welsh still sat [pg 218] defiantly, he added, “At once, sir! or you may possibly find policemen and four-wheeled cabs outside. I have something else to say to Dr Twiddel.”
With the best air he could muster, Welsh silently cocked his hat on the side of his head, threw his coat over his arm, and was walking out, when a watchful waiter intercepted him.
“Your bill, sare.”
“My friend is paying.”
“No, Mr Welsh,” cried the real Essington; “I think you had better pay for this dinner yourself.”
Welsh saw the vigilant proprietor already coming towards him, and with a look that augured ill for Twiddel when they were alone, he put his hand in his pocket.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Essington, “the inevitable bill!”
“And now,” he continued, turning to Twiddel, “you, doctor, seem to me a most unfortunately constructed biped; your nose is just long enough to enable you to be led into a singularly original adventure, and your brains just too few to carry it through creditably. Hang me if I wouldn’t have made a better job of the business! But before you disappear from the company of gentlemen I must ask you to do one favour for me. First thing to-morrow morning you will go down to Clankwood, tell what lie you please, and obtain my legal discharge, or whatever it’s called. After that you may go to the devil—or, what comes much to the same thing, to Mr Welsh—for all I care. You will do this without fail?”