‘That girl is a beast,’ he said to Walter, when she was gone. ‘I really could hardly be civil to her. A perfect Caliban, devoid of taste and feeling. Upon my word some of our fellow-beings are without humanity. I could see through that person at a glance. She is made up of selfishness. If there be one quality most repulsive to me, that is it—selfishness. I do not believe the creature cast a thought upon me, my wants, my sufferings, my peril. Watt, if she shows her ugly face here again, stand against the door, and say, “Not at home.”’
‘Dear Martin, we will go as soon as you are well enough to leave.’
‘Whither are we to go? I cannot join old Barret and his wife and monkeys and babies and walking-sticks of actors, as long as he is in the county. I would go to Bristol or Bath or Cheltenham if I had money, but these miserly Jordans will not find me any. They want to drive me away without first lining my pocket. I know what was meant by those cold slabs of mutton, to-day. It meant, go away. I wait till they give me money.’
‘Dear Martin, you must not be inconsiderate.’
‘I glory in it. What harm comes of it? It is your long-headed, prudent prophets who get into scrapes and can’t get out of them again. I never calculate; I act on impulse, and that always brings me right.’
‘Not always, Martin, or you would not be here.’
‘O, yes, even here. When the impulse comes on me to go, I shall go, and you will find I go at the right time. If that Miss Jordan comes here again with her glum ugly mug, I shall be off. Or Jasper, looking as if the end of the world were come. I can’t stand that. See how cleverly I got away from Prince’s Town.’
‘I helped you, Martin.’
‘I do not pretend that I did all myself. I did escape, and a brilliantly executed manœuvre it was. I thought I was caught in a cleft stick when I dropped on the party of beaks at the “Hare and Hounds,” but see how splendidly I got away. I do believe, Watt, I’ve missed my calling, and ought to have been a general in the British army.’
‘But, dear Martin, generals have to scheme other things beside running away.’