Ratman glanced up at his host with a leer.
“Whose till have you been robbing now?” he said.
Captain Oliphant frowned.
“You haven’t a very genial way about you, Ratman. Try a cigar.”
“Oh, bless you,” said he, “I ask no questions. It’s all one to me, so long as it’s solid pounds, shillings and pence.”
“You wait till to-morrow, and it will be all right,” said the Captain; “and meanwhile, my dear fellow, try to make yourself agreeable, and don’t spoil sport by being unreasonably exacting. Ah, here’s the tea!”
At dinner that evening, Mr Ratman found his only companions Captain Oliphant, Roger, and Mr Armstrong. The talk was difficult, the captain working hard to give his guest a friendly lead; Mr Armstrong trying to appear oblivious of the fact that he had knocked the fellow down twice for a cad; and Roger as head of the house, trying to be affable to a person whom he had expected to find detestable, and who quite came up to expectations.
As the meal went on Mr Ratman showed alarming symptoms of requiring no friendly lead to encourage his powers of conversation. Despite his host’s deprecatory signals, he began to tell stories of an offensive character, and joke about matters not generally held to be amusing in a company of gentlemen. Captain Oliphant grew hot and nervous. Mr Armstrong leant back coolly in his chair, and kept his eye curiously on the speaker, an apparently interested listener. Roger, after the first surprise, flushed wrathfully and fidgeted ominously with his napkin ring.
He was nearly at the end of his tether, and an awkward scene might have ensued, had not Tom opportunely broken in upon the party, very hungry and flushed with a good afternoon’s sport.
“Hullo, Ratman!” said he, greeting the visitor; “turned up again? Got over your black eye all right? I’ve told Armstrong to let me know when the next mill comes off, and I’ll hold the sponge? Been telling them some of your rummy stories? I roared over that you told me about the—”