"If you'll excuse the saying, sir," said Pringle, with deep respect—"you're smart—but your father's smarter. That's putting it in the rough, sir; but you've not been fairly dealt with, sir, and I should like to speak my mind to you."
"You're probably mistaken, you know," said Aubrey—"but you can go on."
"Thank you, sir," said Pringle. "You must know, then, that your father has discovered that there is a way of escape from this place—and he has taken that way."
"Come—no bunkum, you know," said Aubrey. "You can't gammon me; I'm much too fly."
"It would be waste of breath to try to, sir," replied Pringle. "But your father has discovered, quite by accident, what no one else knows; he has found out that this place is not an island at all, but is connected with the mainland. Consequently, sir, to that mainland he has gone; and I expect at the present moment he's got his toes stuck up in front of a very decent fire, sir—with a glass of something in his hand, and I shouldn't be surprised if there was a cigar in the other."
Aubrey Meggison slowly got to his knees, and leaned forward, and stared in blank amazement at the placid Pringle. "You don't mean to say that while all these mugs are rottin' about here, playin' shipwrecks, the guv'nor's gone and found a little place for himself, where he can be nice and comfortable? Don't tell me that the old man's gone one better than anybody else!" he pleaded.
"Unhappily it's a fact, sir. He's living on the fat of the land," said Pringle.
Aubrey got up, and walked round the fire, swearing softly to himself as he went. Then he stopped, and looked down at Pringle, and began to laugh; shook his head whimsically more than once, and slapped his thigh, and danced about a little.
"By George!—he's a wonder!" he exclaimed, in a tone of deep admiration. "I've always been proud of him in a way; never minded tippin' him the nod in a billiard-room or anything of that kind, because he wasn't quite like other chaps' guv'nors. But to think of him slipping off like that and having a good time—— I tell you what it is—my old guv'nor would make a jolly good livin' at the North Pole, without a relief expedition. He's a living wonder!"
"He's a very remarkable man, sir," supplemented Pringle.