“Hear, hear!” cried Sam; “you have done it well, Pots. After that, you can scarcely do less than invite us to drink your good health in a bottle of champagne.”
“That I will, with pleasure. Only you must excuse me, while I see to it myself. The Hotchpots are down in the world, Mr. Johnson, because we could never curry favour. We cannot keep our butlers and our coach-and-four, and our deer-park, as we used to do. Instead of that, I keep the key of my own cellar. But I feel no shame in that. The shame lies rather—”
“Look sharp, old chap; I am as dry as a herring.” Sam was always rough and rude in his discourse; and Sir Cumberleigh set off, with a significant glance at me.
“He has taken a liking to you, the old rogue,” Henderson informed me, when the door was shut; “because he believes that you suck all his brag in, like a child. You stick to that; it suits you well, for your face is no end of innocent. An old stupe like that can be buttered up to anything, if it is laid on by the right card. You don’t suck up to him, you see; but you let him suck up to himself. We shall draw him of everything he knows, and what matters more, everything he suspects. Only you leave the whip-hand to me; green you are, and green you will be to the last.”
“You are altogether out in that,” I said, though I knew it was hopeless to reason with him; “you fellows, who see such a lot of fast life, are none the more sagacious for it. You doubt what everybody says, unless you can find a bad motive for it. And you generally go wrong in the end, because you can only see black all round. But if this is a black sheep, you take the shearing of him. Only I hate to go under a wrong name.”
These words of mine proved that I was not a fool, at least to my own satisfaction. Sam stared at me, as much as to say—“There is more in you, than I thought there was;” but I did not care to press the point; for he might take a huff, and say, “Do it yourself, then.” Only I resolved to listen carefully, and see if there was anything to be learned. And before he could answer, our host returned, with a bottle of champagne under each arm, and the old retainer following with glasses and a corkscrew having a blade attached to it. And I thought that he could not be bad altogether, but must at least have intervals.
“Henderson, will you oblige me by being our—what’s his name? Diomede, or something. I have a touch of rheumatism in one wrist. No corkscrew wanted, if the cork is cork, and not wood, as a great many of them are. But he understands it. Well done, Sam! Fill for Mr. Johnson first. Ah, this is the right sort. Now we know what we are up to. Mr. Johnson, your good health, and the same to you, Sam!”
“Sir Cumberleigh, here’s confusion to your enemies,” cried Sam, standing up to give force to it; “and especially to one whom I could name. Ah, he has led you a pretty dance, and feathered his own nest out of it. However, we won’t say any more about him. A downy fellow can’t help being downy. Every man for his own hand, in this little world.”
“Sam, you know more than you have said. You go about more than I do now. Do you mean to say, that he has let me in purposely?”
“No, I never could believe that he would do it. It looks rather queer, but it must be straight enough. No doubt everything can be explained. You remember about Flying Goose at least?”