‘Nonsense,—that’s your fancy! What you want’s a taste of whisky—you’ll be as chirpy as a cricket.’
‘I don’t want anything more to drink!—I’ve had too much already!’
I paid no heed to what he said. I poured two stiff doses into a couple of tumblers. Without seeming to be aware of what it was that he was doing he disposed of the better half of the one I gave him at a draught. Putting his glass upon the table, he dropped his head upon his hands, and groaned.
‘What would Marjorie think of me if she saw me now?’
‘Think?—nothing. Why should she think of a man like you, when she has so much better fish to fry?’
‘I’m feeling frightfully ill!—I’ll be drunk before I’ve done!’
‘Then be drunk!—only, for gracious sake, be lively drunk, not deadly doleful.—Cheer up, Percy!’ I clapped him on the shoulder,—almost knocking him off his seat on to the floor. ‘I am now going to show you that little experiment of which I was speaking!—You see that cat?’
‘Of course I see it!—the beast!—I wish you’d let it go!’
‘Why should I let it go?—Do you know whose cat that is? That cat’s Paul Lessingham’s.’
‘Paul Lessingham’s?’