"My God! It's in the paper! Townsend, what have you done?"
"It is in the paper, is it? May I ask what is in the paper?"
"They've found the body." He sprang from the chair.
"Reggie, I wish that I had died before you did this thing, and before ever I heard of that accursed club."
"That is rather good, from you--the club having been a suggestion of your own."
"I had been on the drink, hadn't I? I was mad. I swear, before the living God, that I never dreamed that you fellows would take the thing up in bitter earnest."
"My dear Archie, respect the proprieties, if you respect nothing else--not quite that sort of language, if you please." He stared at me and laughed--a queer laugh it was. "You remember the rule which directs what course the members shall pursue towards a colleague who, for any cause, turns tail and rats. That also, I believe, was a suggestion of your own."
"Are you afraid that I shall turn tail and rat? You need have no fear. That I shall never do, especially now. If we are to go to the devil, we'll all travel the same road. But there is one thing on which I do insist. I insist on your ceasing your connection with the Jardines."
"You insist?"
"I beseech you, then."