“Blizzard,” said Bott firmly. “It’s my wife’s birthday next week, and I’ve been wondering what to give her.”
Bradbury Fisher shuddered from head to foot, and his legs wobbled like asparagus stalks. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. The serpent was tempting him—tempting him grievously.
“You’re sure you won’t take three million—or four—or something like that?”
“No; I want Blizzard.”
Bradbury Fisher passed his handkerchief over his streaming brow.
“So be it,” he said in a low voice.
The Jones baffy arrived that night, and for some hours Bradbury Fisher gloated over it with the unmixed joy of a collector who has secured the prize of a lifetime. Then, stealing gradually over him, came the realisation of what he had done.
He was thinking of his wife and what she would say when she heard of this. Blizzard was Mrs. Fisher’s pride and joy. She had never, like the poet, nursed a dear gazelle, but, had she done so, her attitude towards it would have been identical with her attitude towards Blizzard. Although so far away, it was plain that her thoughts still lingered with the pleasure she had left at home, for on his arrival Bradbury had found three cables awaiting him.
The first ran: