“You've been drinking,” he said, crisply; “put that bag down.”
“Arsking your pardon, sir,” said the steward, twisting his unusually dry lips into a smile, “but I've 'ad no opportunity, sir—I've been follerin' you all day, sir.”
A servant opened the door. “You've been soaking in it for a month,” declared the captain as he entered the hall. “Why the blazes don't you bring that bag in? Are you so drunk you don't know what you are doing?”
Mr. Wilks picked the bag up and followed humbly into the house. Then he lost his head altogether, and gave some colour to his superior officer's charges by first cannoning into the servant and then wedging the captain firmly in the doorway of the sitting-room with the bag.
“Steward!” rasped the captain.
“Yessir,” said the unhappy Mr. Wilks.
“Go and sit down in the kitchen, and don't leave this house till you're sober.”
Mr. Wilks disappeared. He was not in his first lustre, but he was an ardent admirer of the sex, and in an absent-minded way he passed his arm round the handmaiden's waist, and sustained a buffet which made his head ring.
“A man o' your age, and drunk, too,” explained the damsel.
Mr. Wilks denied both charges. It appeared that he was much younger than he looked, while, as for drink, he had forgotten the taste of it. A question as to the reception Ann would have accorded a boyish teetotaler remained unanswered.