“If I can leave my friend Crage towards four o’clock, I will,” Mr. Thompson replied. “I know Monte Carlo as well as most men, and may be able to give you some useful hints.”
“We shall be glad to see you, for none of us have ever been there. But not a word to your friend!”
“Not a word to a soul!” smiled the imperturbable little man; and he left us to join the abandoned Crage, who was still inside the sacred edifice snarling at the parson.
It was quite useless saying anything further to Brentin. I merely contented myself with pointing out that if anything could make me suspect Mr. Bailey Thompson, it was his being the guest of Mr. Crage.
“Pawsibly!” drawled Mr. Brentin. “I don’t pretend the man is pure-bred, nor exactly fit at this moment to take his seat at Queen Victoria’s table; but that he’s stanch, with that square chin, I will stake my bottom dollar. And seeing how well he knows the locality, we shall learn something from him, sir, which, you may depend upon, will be highly useful.”
The attitude of the band of brothers so far had been rather of the negative order. Whether their enthusiasm was cooling, as they had been employing their spare time in pitifully surveying the difficulties and danger of the scheme, instead of the glory and the profit, I know not; but, obviously, neither on Christmas Eve nor Christmas morning were they any longer in the hopeful condition in which they were when I first approached and secured them.
That they had been talking the matter over among themselves was clear, for no sooner was the Christmas fare disposed of in the great hall than they began to open fire. Their first shot was discharged when Mr. Thatcher brought us in a bowl of punch, about three o’clock, and Brentin proceeded to charge their glasses, and desire them to drink to the affair and our successful return therefrom.
They drank the toast so half-heartedly, much as Jacobites when called on to pledge King George, that Brentin lost his temper.
“Gentlemen!” he cried, thumping the table, “if you cannot drink to our success with more momentum than that, you will never do for adventurers; you may as well stay right here and till the soil. And that’s all there is to it!”
“What’s the matter with eating fat bacon under a hedge?” growled Bob Hines. He had been much nettled at the way Brentin had taken us all in charge, and more particularly at his being ordered off to church. Hence his not altogether apposite interruption.