“That,” said O’Hara, “is Sir Eustace Briggs.”
“Who’s Sir Eustace Briggs?”
O’Hara explained, in a rich brogue, that Sir Eustace was Mayor of Wrykyn, a keen politician, and a hater of the Irish nation, judging by his letters and speeches.
They went into Trevor’s study. Clowes was occupying the window in his usual manner.
“Hullo, O’Hara,” he said, “there is an air of quiet satisfaction about you that seems to show that you’ve been ragging Dexter. Have you?”
“Oh, that was only this morning at breakfast. The best rag was in French,” replied O’Hara, who then proceeded to explain in detail the methods he had employed to embitter the existence of the hapless Gallic exile with whom he had come in contact. It was that gentleman’s custom to sit on a certain desk while conducting the lesson. This desk chanced to be O’Hara’s. On the principle that a man may do what he likes with his own, he had entered the room privily in the dinner-hour, and removed the screws from his desk, with the result that for the first half-hour of the lesson the class had been occupied in excavating M. Gandinois from the ruins. That gentleman’s first act on regaining his equilibrium had been to send O’Hara out of the room, and O’Hara, who had foreseen this emergency, had spent a very pleasant half-hour in the passage with some mixed chocolates and a copy of Mr Hornung’s Amateur Cracksman. It was his notion of a cheerful and instructive French lesson.
“What were you talking about when you came in?” asked Clowes. “Who’s been slanging Ireland, O’Hara?”
“The man Briggs.”
“What are you going to do about it? Aren’t you going to take any steps?”
“Is it steps?” said O’Hara, warmly, “and haven’t we——”