At last, with something that was very like a start, he seemed to come back to his surroundings.
"It's a nice piece of work," he said, "and just the thing you want here in winter. I like the old barge well enough, but there are some advantages in living on dry land after all."
I poured him out a glass of my uncle's brandy which I knew from experience to be of a remarkably mellowing nature.
"I should think a barge was great fun," I said, "What put the idea into your head?"
He took an appreciative sip at the brandy, and lit another of his eternal cigarettes.
"It was more chance than anything else," he replied. "I heard she was up for sale, and I wanted some sort of a headquarters down here, so I just stepped in and bought her straight away. The chap she belonged to was only asking four hundred, and she was dirt cheap at the price."
"I wonder what our friend Drayton's opinion would be on that point," I said. "He nearly had a fit when I told him I was coming to live on Greensea."
Manning laughed. "Oh, he thinks I'm as mad as a hatter. He can't understand anyone being able to exist unless they're within a taxi-drive of Bedford Row," He paused. "All the same, I believe it's people like ourselves who really get the best out of life. I would give the whole of what London and New York have to offer for one good evening after duck, or a stiff beat to windward round the Bridwell buoy."
The ring of genuine enthusiasm in his voice was quite unmistakable, and I looked across at him with a sudden curiosity that I did my best to hide. I have run up against a fairly representative crowd of blackguards in my life, but there was something about Manning that certainly placed him in a reserved compartment. Leaving aside his charm of manner, it seemed almost incredible that a man whose tastes lay along such simple, healthy lines as duck-shooting and yacht-racing could really be the complete scoundrel that my imagination had gradually constructed. Still, facts were facts, and this very incongruity only helped to make the situation still more stimulating.
"You must get a boat and take up racing," he continued, finishing off his liqueur. "There's no sport in the world to touch it, and the little six metre class we go in for here aren't very expensive."