“So’s yours, for that matter. Hey, Orlando?”
Mr. Toosypegs blushed to the very roots of his hair, and shifted his feet uneasily over the floor, as though it burnt them.
“Orlando,” said the admiral—holding his pipe between his finger and thumb, and regarding significantly these emotions—“Orlando, I see breakers ahead!”
“Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a tone of mingled uneasiness and anguish, “I dare say you do; but, my gracious! don’t keep looking at a fellow so! I couldn’t help it, you know; and I know it’s all my own fault to be miserable for life. I don’t blame anybody at all, and I rather like being miserable for life than otherwise. I know you mean well, but I’d rather you wouldn’t keep looking at me so. I’m very much obliged to you.”
“Orlando,” solemnly began the admiral, without removing his eyes from the other’s face, “you’re steering out of your course altogether. Come to anchor! Now, then, what’s to pay?”
The unexpected energy with which this last question was asked had such an effect on the nerves of Mr. O. C. Toosypegs, that he gave a sudden jump, suggestive of sitting down on an upturned pin cushion, and grasped his stick in wild alarm.
“Now, Orlando,” repeated the admiral, with a wave of his pipe—“now, Orlando, the question is, what’s to pay?”
“Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs in terror, “there ain’t nothing to pay; I don’t owe a cent in the world, s’elp me Bob! I don’t owe a single blamed brass farthing to a child unborn!”
“Pah!” said the admiral, with a look of intense disgust at his obtuseness, “I didn’t mean that. I want to know what’s up, where the wind sits; what you keep cruising off and on that cottage for all the time. Now, then, hold hard!”
“It’s my intention to hold hard, Admiral Havenful,” replied Mr. Toosypegs, blushing like a beet-root. “But I’d rather not mention what takes me there, if it’s all the same to you. It’s a secret, locked deep in the unfathomable recesses of this here bosom; and I never mean to reveal it to anybody till I’m a melancholy corpse in the skies. You’ll excuse me, Admiral Havenful; a fellow can’t always restrain his tears, you know; and I feel so miserable, thank you, of late, that it’s a consolation even to cry,” said Mr. Toosypegs, wiping his eye.