"How did the story run?" I asked.
My vicar repeated it. (Which is more than I can do.)
"Well, that ought to drum me out of her esteem," I remarked, with the feeling of a man respited on the scaffold. "And it hangs together fairly well for a fabrication. But I'm honestly sorry to have been forced to put such an office on you, Moriarty. Indeed, I wonder how you could have the nerve to tell such a yarn in a woman's hearing."
"Friendship, old man," replied my factor wammly. "But it ain't a fabrication. I found I couldn't invent anything with the proper ring of truth about it; so, the evening before the disclosure, when Jack the Shellback was in the store getting some things to take out with him, I asked him what was the most blackguardly prank he ever got off with; and that was the yarn he told me. Of course, I altered it a bit to suit you."
"And Mrs. Beaudesart believes it?" I queried hopefully.
"I don't see what else she can do, considering the way the thing came-off.
She would have to be like one of the ancient prophets."
"And you think it has the proper effect?"
"No effect at all," replied the nuncio decidedly. "Her manner's just the same when she hears you talked about promiscuously; and she does n't take it any way ill to overhear a quiet joke about the thing that's supposed to be coming-off some time soon. It's a failure so far as that goes. Certain as life."
"Well, Moriarty, if dishonour has no effect, we must try disgrace."
"Why, they're the same. You better go back to school, Collins."