“I’m sorry,” drawled his lordship, “but before you quit my service, I should like to receive one well thought-out opinion from you.”
“What is your problem, my lord?”
“It is this, Mackeller. I consider the after-breakfast cigarette the most enticing smoke of the day. A man who has slept well, and breakfasted adequately seems just in tune to enjoy to the utmost these enchanting vaporous exhalations. I wish to know if you agree with me.”
“Oh, damnation!” cried Mackeller, bringing his huge fist down on the table, and setting the breakfast things a-jingling, and with this regrettable word and action, he strode toward the door. The butler was there as if to open it for him, but his lordship made a slight turning motion of his wrist, whereupon Ponderby instantly locked the door and put the key in his pocket, standing there as silent and imperturbable as if he had not just imprisoned a free-born British subject, which he certainly had no legal right to do. The enraged captive fruitlessly shook the door, then turned round, his face ablaze with anger. Neither his lordship nor the butler moved a muscle.
“Mr. Mackeller,” drawled his lordship, “you have been conversing most interestingly, I admit, on subjects that did not in the least concern you. Now, perhaps, you will resume your duty.”
“My duty? What is my duty?” demanded the engineer.
“Why, I hoped it would not be necessary to remind you of it. I sent you down to Southampton to look after my property; the Rajah, which I had hired, and the machinery, provisions, etcetera, which I had bought. Through your negligence, carelessness, laches, default, supineness, inattention, or whatever other quality it pleases you to attribute the circumstance, you allowed yourself to be hoodwinked like a schoolboy, trapped like a rat, tied like a helpless sack on a pack horse for an unstated number of miles, flung like a bundle into a pilot boat, and landed like a haddock on the beach. A man to whom all this happened must be well endowed with cheek to enter my house and berate me for indolence. So cease standing there like a graven image with your back to the door, and do not perambulate the room as you did a minute ago, like a tiger in his cage at the Zoo, but sit down here once more, light another cigarette, fling one leg over the other, and give me, slowly, so that I can understand it, a formal report of your Southampton mission, and the disaster which attended it. I shall be glad to receive and consider any excuse you may offer for your own utter incompetence, and you may begin by apologizing for dealing a deadly blow at my table, which is quite innocent, and for offending my ears by the expletive that preceded such action.”
Mackeller strode over to the chair again, and plumped down like the fall of a sledge-hammer.
“You’re right. I apologize, and ask you to pardon my tongue-play and fist-play.”
His lordship airily waved his hand.