“That, sir,” said Mr. Brentin, chewing his cigar as we rattled along in the train, “has happened to me more than once with your lower orders. I go into my tailor’s with my noo coat bulging at the back, bursting with ay sense of injury at the misfit considering the price I have paid. And that tailor keeps cool while I stamp around; he surveys me with ay pitying smile, he calls up his assistants to admire the fit, and he proves to me con-clusively that the best part of that coat is precisely the bulge in the back, and that I shall injure his reputation and ruin the coat if I have it touched. I enter that store, sir, like ay raging lion, and I leave it ay teething lamb, my mouth overflowing with apologies, which the damn tailor will scarcely accept. And I know he thinks, ‘What infernal fools these Yankees are!’ and is laafing at me in his sleeve as the bulge and I disappear in the crowd of his other misfits, and are lost in the night of his paid accounts.”
That same evening the purchase of the yacht was concluded by Mr. Brentin, as he wrote me in the morning; directing me, further, to go right ahead and get the rest of my desperadoes together for a dash on the tables in January. He added in a postscript that, for his part, he was going into the city early next morning to buy three fair-sized cannon, capable of throwing three fair-sized shells; for, in case anything went wrong and we were captured, it would be just as well to leave orders with Captain Evans to shell the Casino, and so continue till we were released and replaced on board the Amaranth, with a guarantee for our expenses, and an undertaking for no further molestation.
Bold as I am, owing in some measure to my militia training, the rapidity of the American mind was again causing me some considerable qualms.
CHAPTER IX
MY SISTER’S SUSPICIONS—HEROES OF THE ARGO—MY SISTER DETERMINES TO COME WITH US AS CHAPERON TO MISS RYBOT
From now right on to Christmas I lived in a constant hurry and ferment of excitement; for not only was I full of every sort of preparation for our adventure, but every day brought me nearer “The French Horn” and my seeing dear Lucy once more. By the second week in December I had at last got our party of six together; to which number, for the present, at any rate, by Mr. Brentin’s advice, it was determined to limit it. If it were to be done at all, he said, six could easily do it, and by adding more we were only increasing the danger of the affair leaking out and the people at the tables being forewarned and forearmed; neither of which, though more particularly the latter, did we at all desire.
Directly the party was complete, I informed Mr. Brentin, and by his directions gave them all a rendezvous at “The French Horn” for Christmas. He wished to see us all together he said, and take our measure; not that he doubted I had chosen the right sort, but rather that he might consider what post should be assigned to each—who should lead the van and who should guard the rear, and who, if necessary, should form the reserve and direct the shell-throwing on the Casino in case of our capture.
Meantime I had been so busy running over the country, interviewing and persuading, and by many being point-blank refused, that I had quite neglected my sister, Mrs Rivers, and Medworth Square; and whether it was she suspected something from my continued absence, or something had leaked out through Parker White, I never could quite discover; but, at any rate, she one day sent for me to come to tea, and attacked me at once to know what I was doing and why I never came to the house.
From very early days my sister Muriel has been my confidante in everything. My father I scarcely remember, beyond the fact that he always wore a white waistcoat and smelt of sherry when he kissed me, and my dear mother died in Jubilee year—a very sad year, notwithstanding the universal illuminations and rejoicings, for me; so to Muriel I have always carried all my troubles and griefs, and no better sister for that sort of work could any man wish for.
Particularly has she always been the sympathetic recipient of my love-affairs, with the single exception of my affair with Lucy; for though Muriel isn’t in the least a snob, yet I don’t suppose she would have been best pleased to learn of her only brother’s attachment to an innkeeper’s daughter, of however old a family. So all she knew was that the Mabel Harker business was at an end, and was naturally wondering how my vagrant heart was being employed meantime; questions on which subject, however, I had always managed to shirk.