"Well, Roger," he cried in his bluff strong voice (though I noticed it was discreetly lowered while there was any one within earshot), "I hear you've taken to liquor so badly that your friends have got to remove you from society! We always did think it would come to something of this kind; eh, Jack?"
"He always was a bad egg, sir," said my cousin. "I don't mind betting he hasn't brushed his beard."
"And that limp!" added Sir Francis. "Gad, I believe he's been kicked downstairs by an indignant husband!"
However, he pressed my arm as he laughed, and it was not a critical pressure.
"I can't shave owing to my shaky hand," I explained, "and the limp is port in the big toe."
"Port?" exclaimed my uncle. "No, no, my dear fellow, it's whisky poisoning you suffer from. You began in secret in your sixteenth year and have been a trouble to your friends since you were twenty-one. However, I've got all the particulars written out for you, and mind you get 'em into your head and don't contradict yourself or me when you go to live with that doctor fellow."
Jack winked at me from the shelter of our respected uncle's back and I hid a responsive smile. With all his virtues, Sir Francis Merton had never been fond of playing second fiddle, and this masterful seizure of our scheme and dictation of all the details was exceedingly characteristic. At the same time he was as shrewd as he was peremptory and I felt satisfied his details would be sound.
"It's all right so long as he doesn't insist on disguising himself too and coming with me," I whispered to Jack as we went into dinner.
"What I'm afraid of is that he'll go instead of you!" said Jack. "I never saw him keener about an idea."
We dined at a corner table whence we could see at once if any one approached too near, and I think my uncle must have arranged that neither of the nearest tables should he occupied; so he was able to get to work with the soup.