"No, he was polite; the most confoundedly polite cuss I ever encountered," answered Gage.
"I'm glad to hear that," said Lady Ormstork. "And so your interview, preposterous as it was on his part, was quite amicable?"
For a moment neither man felt equal to answering the question. Then Peckover said, "Quite amicable, only a touch one-sided. You see, it don't exactly pay to be nasty when a fellow's sitting over you with a revolver."
Lady Ormstork threw up her hands. "A revolver? Ridiculous person! Really—I hope you told the foolish man that that sort of thing was quite out of date."
"The revolver wasn't though," objected Peckover with a reminiscent shiver. "It looked quite new, with all the latest improvements and in first-class working order."
"Really?" cried the lady incredulously.
"As far as we could judge. Didn't want any closer inspection. I'm content to take a revolver's business capacity for granted."
"But surely," remarked Lady Ormstork with an amused curl of the lip, "you don't mean to say that you allowed this droll Salolja to alarm you?"
The men glanced at each other with long faces.
"We weren't exactly sorry when he said good-bye," was Gage's evasive answer.