Strong mused for a while as he lighted his cigar with a coal, “I should like to know how you always draw money from Clavering, Colonel,” he said.
The Colonel burst out with a laugh—“Ha, ha! he owes it me,” he said.
“I don’t know that that’s a reason with Frank for paying,” Strong answered. “He owes plenty besides you.”
“Well, he gives it me because he is so fond of me,” the other said with the same grinning sneer. “He loves me like a brother; you know he does, Captain.—No?—He don’t?—Well, perhaps he don’t; and if you ask me no questions, perhaps I’ll tell you no lies, Captain Strong—put that in your pipe and smoke it, my boy.”
“But I’ll give up that confounded brandy-bottle,” the Colonel continued, after a pause. “I must give it up, or it’ll be the ruin of me.”
“It makes you say queer things,” said the Captain, looking Altamont hard in the face. “Remember what you said last night, at Clavering’s table.”
“Say? What did I say?” asked the other hastily. “Did I split anything? Dammy, Strong, did I split anything?”
“Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies,” the Chevalier replied on his part. Strong thought of the words Mr. Altamont had used, and his abrupt departure from the Baronet’s dining-table and house as soon as he recognised Major Pendennis, or Captain Beak, as he called the Major. But Strong resolved to seek an explanation of these words otherwise than from Colonel Altamont, and did not choose to recall them to the other’s memory. “No,” he said then, “you didn’t split as you call it, Colonel; it was only a trap of mine to see if I could make you speak; but you didn’t say a word that anybody could comprehend—you were too far gone for that.”
So much the better, Altamont thought; and heaved a great sigh, as if relieved. Strong remarked the emotion, but took no notice, and the other being in a communicative mood, went on speaking.
“Yes, I own to my faults,” continued the Colonel. “There is some things I can’t, do what I will, resist: a bottle of brandy, a box of dice, and a beautiful woman. No man of pluck and spirit, no man as was worth his salt ever could, as I know of. There’s hardly p’raps a country in the world in which them three ain’t got me into trouble.”