"I'll prosecute you," bellowed Captain Trimblett. "You're shamming, you old fox. You can hear what I say plain enough. You've been spreading reports that I'm going to—"
He stopped and looked round just in time. Attracted by the volume of his voice, the housekeeper had come to the back door, two faces appeared at the next-door windows, and the back of Mr. Peter Truefitt was just disappearing inside his summer-house.
"I know you are talking," said Captain Sellers, plaintively, "because I can see your lips moving. It's a great affliction—deafness."
He fell back in his chair again, and, with a crafty old eye cocked on the windows next door, fingered a scanty tuft of white hair on his chin and smiled weakly. Captain Trimblett controlled himself by an effort, and, selecting a piece of paper from a bundle of letters in his pocket, made signs for a pencil. Captain Sellers shook his head; then he glanced round uneasily as Trimblett, with an exclamation of satisfaction, found an inch in his waistcoat-pocket and began to write. He nodded sternly at the paper when he had finished, and handed it to Captain Sellers.
The old gentleman received it with a pleasant smile, and, extricating himself from his chair in a remarkable fashion considering his age, began to fumble in his pockets. He went through them twice, and his countenance, now lighted by hope and now darkened by despair, conveyed to Captain Trimblett as accurately as speech could have done the feelings of a man to whom all reading matter, without his spectacles, is mere dross.
"I can't find my glasses," said Captain Sellers, at last, lowering himself into the chair. Then he put his hand to his ear and turned toward his visitor. "Try again," he said, encouragingly.
Captain Trimblett eyed him for a moment in helpless wrath, and then, turning on his heel, marched back through the house, and after standing irresolute for a second or two entered his own. The front room was empty, and from the silence he gathered that Mrs. Chinnery was out. He filled his pipe, and throwing himself into an easy-chair sought to calm his nerves with tobacco, while he tried to think out his position. His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Truefitt, and something in the furtive way that gentleman eyed him as he came into the room only served to increase his uneasiness.
"Very warm," said Truefitt.
The captain assented, and with his eyes fixed on the mantelpiece smoked in silence.
"I saw you... talking... to Captain Sellers just now," said Mr. Truefitt, after a long pause.