Topping?
“Have a cigar. Waiter! Coffee and cigars. I shall come and see you to-night. Suppose you’ll be here a week?”
Topping! The laughter and applause—“Mr. Caister’s rendering left nothing to be desired; its —— and its —— are in the true spirit of ——!”
Silence recalled him from his rings of smoke. Bryce-Green was sitting, with cigar held out and mouth a little open, and bright eyes round as pebbles, fixed—fixed on some object near the floor, past the corner of the tablecloth. Had he burnt his mouth? The eyelids fluttered; he looked at Caister, licked his lips like a dog, nervously, and said:
“I say, old chap, don’t think me a beast, but are you at all—er—er—rocky? I mean—if I can be of any service, don’t hesitate! Old acquaintance, don’t you know, and all that——”
His eyes rolled out again towards the object, and Caister followed them. Out there above the carpet he saw it—his own boot. It dangled, because his knees were crossed, six inches off the ground—split—right across, twice, between lace and toecap. Quite! He knew it. A boot left him from the rôle of Bertie Carstairs, in ‘The Dupe,’ just before the war. Good boots. His only pair, except the boots of Dr. Dominick, which he was nursing. And from the boot he looked back at Bryce-Green, sleek and concerned. A drop, black when it left his heart, suffused his eye behind the monocle; his smile curled bitterly; he said:
“Not at all, thanks! Why?”
“Oh! n-n-nothing. It just occurred to me.” His eyes—but Caister had withdrawn the boot. Bryce-Green paid the bill and rose.