“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Burton. “I knocked it on the floor and trod on it by accident; smashed it to powder.”
Mr. Stiles rated him roundly for his carelessness, and asked him whether he knew that it was a present from the Italian Ambassador.
“Burton was always a clumsy man,” he said, turning to the widow. “He had the name for it when he was on the Destruction with me; ‘Bungling Burton’ they called him.”
He divided the rest of the evening between flirting and recounting various anecdotes of Mr. Burton, none of which were at all flattering either to his intelligence or to his sobriety, and the victim, after one or two futile attempts at contradiction, sat in helpless wrath as he saw the infatuation of the widow. They were barely clear of the house before his pent-up emotions fell in an avalanche of words on the faithless Mr. Stiles.
“I can’t help being good-looking,” said the latter, with a smirk.
“Your good looks wouldn’t hurt anybody,” said Mr. Burton, in a grating voice; “it’s the admiral business that fetches her. It’s turned ’er head.”
Mr. Stiles smiled. “She’ll say ‘snap’ to my ‘snip’ any time,” he remarked. “And remember, George, there’ll always be a knife and fork laid for you when you like to come.”
“I dessay,” retorted Mr. Burton, with a dreadful sneer. “Only as it happens I’m going to tell ’er the truth about you first thing to-morrow morning. If I can’t have ’er you sha’n’t.”
“That’ll spoil your chance, too,” said Mr. Stiles. “She’d never forgive you for fooling her like that. It seems a pity neither of us should get her.”
“You’re a sarpent,” exclaimed Mr. Burton, savagely—“a sarpent that I’ve warmed in my bosom and——”