"Yes?"
"Pineapple." He spoke the word incisively.
Richard shook his head.
"Haven't the smallest idea what you mean," he said, "but not to seem lacking in appreciation, bananas or any other fruit you've a fancy for."
The door opened and closed behind the three retreating forms and once again the room was plunged into darkness.
The business of getting into bed was embarrassed by the constant reverses of light into darkness and back again. There appeared to be no specified period for either—sometimes the light would burn ten minutes—sometimes two and sometimes would merely flash up and down. A more successful irritant could hardly have been devised. The shock of the extreme contrast was in itself enough to infuriate an ordinary individual. Richard would gladly have accepted total darkness in preference to the blinding changes. This, however, was no part of his tormentors' programme—it was clearly evident they intended to prey upon his nerves as actively as possible. He reflected that no doubt many other devices were in preparation to induce him to speak. There was this talk of pineapple which appeared to carry with it some kind of threat.
"Pineapple. Why the deuce should pineapple loosen a man's tongue?" he said aloud as he struggled into a pair of pyjamas that had been laid on the bed. "Might make his mouth water perhaps but——"
At this particular moment the lights came on and he was able to finish undressing and nip between the sheets before the darkness fell again.
He observed with satisfaction that there was nothing funny about the bed. It was soft and "cushy" and there were ample coverings. It was vastly more comfortable than the bench which had supported him during the preceding nights and this in itself was something to be grateful for. After all, even if these earnest financiers perpetrated a few ill-humoured practical jokes upon him he was being absurdly overpaid to endure them.
Five thousand pounds for a fortnight's badgering. Who wouldn't put up with a bit of discomfort for that. The wily Hun had handed him over far more substantial terrors than these gentlemen were likely to command and his pay for enduring them had worked out at approximately three pound ten a week. He fell to considering in what manner he would invest his earnings and a very attractive farming scheme in New Zealand began to formulate prettily. Farming had always appealed to him and there was a spot in the Canterbury district which had taken his fancy when he had visited the South Island two years before. There were green plains there and lettuce green woods and it was watered by a network of fast running streams, great and little, where fat rainbow trout sunned themselves in the shallows or leapt and jostled where the water tumbled creaming over rock and boulder. By Gad! it would be something like to build one's house in such surroundings—and maybe later on to marry and——