Tyson looked furious. Louis went on, unconscious of his doom. "Old Morley went for me like a lunatic—said you didn't ride like a tailor, you rode like a man. Queer old buffer, Morley—couldn't think what was the matter with him."
Tyson laid down his cue and held Stanistreet with a leveling gaze.
"Look here, Stanistreet," said he, "I've stood a good deal, but if you think I'm going to stand that, you're a greater fool than I took you for. What the hell do you mean by telling everybody about my private affairs?"
"My dear Tyson, a man who rides to hounds regularly on a kangaroo has no private affairs, he is, ipso facto, a public character." He threw back his head and shouted his laughter. "You've built yourself an everlasting name."
"Oh, no doubt. If Morley knows it everybody knows it. You might just as well confide in the town-crier." He sat down and pressed his hands to his forehead.
"This," he said bitterly, "accounts for everything."
Stanistreet stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. "What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing. I'm not going to kick you out of the house. I only ask you, so long as you are in it, to mind your own business."
"I can't. I haven't any business." No one could be more exasperating than the guileless Louis. Tyson darted another glance at him that was quite fiendish in its ferocity, and flung himself on the sofa. Sprawling there with his hands in his pockets, he remarked with freezing politeness, "I don't say much, Stanistreet, but I think a damned deal."
"My dear Orlando Furioso, surely a harmless jest—"