“Do you hear?” replied the ambassador; “let me in.”
“There’s plenty of room in your own study, ain’t there? Why don’t you go there? We don’t want you here.”
“Cut your sticks, and learn your rotten Modern lessons,” shouted Wally, who began to be tired of being a listener.
Luckily, Cottle knocked over one of the chairs at this juncture, which served to conceal the voice of the speaker from the ears outside.
“All right,” said Gamble; “you’ll catch it. Clapperton sent me to tell you if you don’t come to his room directly, he’ll come and fetch you himself. There!”
“Good evening,” cried Ramshaw. “Our love to them all at home.”
D’Arcy, meanwhile, had mounted the bed, and by means of a pea-shooter materially assisted in the departure of the discomfited envoy.
“Now we’re getting livery,” said Wally, proceeding to load his squirt out of the jug. “Better light the candle, one of you, and have some light on the subject.”
A terrible discovery ensued. Neither candle nor matches could be found! In a quarter of an hour daylight would depart, and after that—well, the prospect was not brilliant, at any rate. However, there was no time to do anything but recriminate, which the company industriously did until the sentinel again gave the signal to stand by.
“Look here,” said Percy, “we’d better keep him jawing as long as he’ll stand it, and not let fly till he begins to get violent—eh?”