O’Hagan fumbled, impressively, for the broad black ribbon upon which depends his monocle. He raised the glass, and, holding it at some little distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker. O’Hagan’s right eye, magnified by the pebble, can show, on occasions, as a large grey orb of intolerance.
“You interest me, Mr. Dewson.”
“I’ll interest you some more yet, sir!” declared Dewson, with cheery confidence. “It’s likely you’ll have heard of a little author called Ronald Brandon?”
He spoke the words waggishly; as one might say: “You may have heard a little Stratford fellow, called Shakespeare, mentioned?”—or, “You’ve perhaps seen the name of a rather likely figure painter, known as Michelangelo?”
In point of fact, Ronald Brandon really was a “little” author; and, as it happened, O’Hagan never had heard of him. He has never heard of any modern fictionists; he regards them all with immeasurable contempt. Mr. Dewson’s question was purely a rhetoric question, however, and he proceeded without pausing for a reply:
“His new book (it’ll break all the windows) is ‘Jules Sanquin, Duellist.’ He’s placed his press work in my hands, and I’ve been looking for an introduction to you, Captain, for over a week! I can put up a proposition to net you a pile!”
“Indeed!” said O’Hagan, icily.
(“Such people as Dewson,” he has confided to me, “are calculated to bring disgrace upon a national character. He was the type of man who would have sought an audience with His Holiness the Pope, and ‘put up a proposition’ to boom St. Peter’s.”)
“My client, as you’ll know,” continued the irrepressible press agent, “is top-hole as a swordsman. Took out the team a year ago that beat the Frenchmen.”
Captain O’Hagan stared.