"No, no," says Pinckney, "just pretend you haven't discovered it. He's very sensitive on the subject—thinks no one knows, and so on."
"But it's as plain as a gold tooth," says I.
"I know," says Pinckney; "but humour him. He's the right sort."
Pinckney wa'n't far off, either. For a gent that acted as though he'd been born wearin' a high collar and a shiny hat, Sir Twiggle wasn't so worse. Barrin' the stiffenin', which didn't wear off at all, he was a decent kind of a haitch eater. Bein' dignified was something he couldn't help. You'd never guessed, to look at him, that he'd ever been mixed up in anything livelier'n layin' a church cornerstone, but it leaks out that he had been through all kinds of scraps in India, comes from the same stock as the old Marquis of Queensberry, and has followed the ring more or less himself.
"I had the doubtful honour," says he, bringin' both eyes into range on me, "of backing a certain Mr. Palmer, whom we sent over here several years ago after a belt."
"He got more'n one belt," says I.
"Quite so," says he, almost crackin' a smile; "one belt too many, I fancy."
Say, that was a real puncherino, eh? I ain't sure but what he got off more along the same line, for some of them British kind is hard to know unless you see 'em printed in the joke column. Anyway, we has quite a chin, and before he left we got real chummy.
He had a right to be feelin' gay, though; for he'd come over to marry a girl with more real estate deeds than you could pack in a trunk. Some kin of Pinckney's, this Miss Cornerlot was; a sort of faded flower that had hung too long on the stem. She'd run across Sir Hunter in London, him bein' a widower that was willin' to forget, and they'd made a go of it, nobody knew why. I judged that Pinckney was some relieved at the prospects of placin' a misfit. He'd laid out for a little dinner at the club, just to introduce Sir Hunter to his set and brace him up for bein' inspected by the girl's aunt and other relations at some swell doin's after.
I didn't pay much attention to their program at the time. It wa'n't any of my funeral who Pinckney married off his leftover second cousins to; and by evenin' I'd clean forgot all about Twiggle; when Pinckney 'phones he'd be obliged if I could step around to a Broadway hotel right off, as he's in trouble.