Fifteen years--and it must be fifteen years--is a long stretch. . . .
"Oh, d.a.m.n your Italian," said Farrell suddenly, dropping the card.
"In the old days we used to make orders on our fingers, in the dumb alphabet, and risk what came."
"By this time he had Giovanni, and several anarchists at the nearer tables, properly scared. But he picked up the card and went on, innocent as a judge," We used to have a code in those days.
For instance, you crooked one finger over your nose and that meant "sea-urchins."" "Why?" I asked. "That was the code," Farrell explained. "They used to have a speciality in sea-urchins, straight from the Mediterranean. You rubbed a soupsong of garlic into them with three drops of paprika. . . . Now what do you say to sea-urchins?"
""Nothing, as a rule," said I. "Safer with oysters, isn"t it?
They don"t explode." I dropped this out just to try its effect on the waiter, and he blanched. One or two of our _convives_ began to clear.
"Farrell ordered two dozen of oysters, to start with, and sent a runner out for--no, Otty, I won"t say it again--for two bottles of Perrier-Jouet; _two_ bottles and "96, mark you. On hearing this command about a dozen _habitues_ of the "Catalafina" arose hastily, drained their gla.s.ses and vanished.
"Farrell perceived it not. He had picked up the card again and was ordering some infernal broth made of mussels and I-don"t-know-what.
"What do you say to follow?" he asked me.
""Something light," I suggested. "Liver of blaspheming Jew, for choice: it sounds like another speciality of this kitchen."
"In the interval before the wine was brought Farrell gave me a short account of the meeting he had just left: and he didn"t lighten the atmosphere of suspicion around us by suddenly sinking his voice to a kind of conspirator"s whisper. The meeting (it appeared) had been lively, and more than lively. Our small incursion--or the Professor"s, rather--had been a fool to it. For the Professor"s loyal pupils, stung by that letter in the _Times_, had organised a counter-demonstration. "Their behaviour," Farrell reported, "was unbridled." They would hardly allow me a hearing. I give you my word--and I wish Sir Roderick to know it--I was prepared to tell them that information had come to me which put a different complexion on the whole case. I was even prepared to tell them that, while I should ever insist on the South London University College and all similar inst.i.tutions being subject to a more public control with an increased representation of local rate-payers on their governing bodies, I was confident that in this particular case the charge had been too hasty. . . . I have the notes of my speech in my great-coat pocket; I"ll give them to you later and beg you as a favour to show them to Sir Roderick. But what was the use, when they started booing me because I wore evening dress?"
""Why did you?" I asked.
""Because, as I tried to explain, I had another engagement to keep immediately after the Meeting--a Conversatsiony, as I put it to them."
""Then perhaps," said I, "they took exception to some details of the costume--for instance, your wearing a silk handkerchief, and crimson at that, tucked in between your shirt-front and your white waistcoat."
""Is that wrong?" Farrell asked anxiously. "Maria used to insist on it. She said it looked neglijay. . . . But I suppose fashions alter in these little details." He stood up, removed the handkerchief, and stowed it in a tail-pocket.
""That"s better," said I.
""I"m not above taking a hint," said he, "from one as knows.
It"ll be harder to get at. . . . But I don"t believe, if you"ll excuse me, that any one of these students, as they call themselves, ever wore an evening suit in his life--unless "twas a hired one.
No, sir; they came prepared for mischief. They meant to wreck the Meeting, and had brought along bags of cayenne pepper, and pots of chemicals to stink us out. They opened one--phew! And I have another, captured from them, in the pocket of my greatcoat on the rack, there. I"ll show it to you by and by. Luckily our stewards had wind, early in the afternoon, that some such game was afoot, and had posted a body of bruisers conveniently, here and there, about the hall. So in the end they were thrown out, one by one--yes, sir, ignominiously. It don"t add to one"s respect for public life, though."
"At this point the wine made its appearance, and--if you"ll believe me--it was genuine: Perrier-Jouet, "96. A little while on the ice might have improved it, but we gave it no time. The oysters arrived too; but they were tired, I think. Something was wrong with them, anyhow. . . . Then--as I seem to remember having told you--Farrell put down three gla.s.ses of champagne on an empty stomach."
"You did mention it," said I; "somewhere in the dim and distant past."
"For my part," went on Jimmy seriously, "my potations were moderate.
After trying the first oyster, I was sober enough to let the others alone. Then came on the alleged mussel-soup. I tried it and laid down my spoon. . . . Do you happen to know, Otty, which develops the quicker typhoid or ptomaine? and if they are, by any chance, mutually exclusive? Farrell will like to know.
"He swallowed it all. But when he had done he looked full in the eyes and said in a loud, unfaltering voice, "This restarong is no longer what it was."
""The champagne is, and better," I consoled him.
""Well, what do you say now," he asked," to a pig"s trotter farced with pimento? _That_ sounds appetising, at any rate."
"I think it was at this point, accurately, that I began to suspect him of having exceeded or of being on the verge of excess. But the suspicion no sooner crossed my mind than he set it at rest by getting up and walking across the room to his great-coat, on the rack by the door. His gait was perfectly steady. He drew certain articles from the pockets, returned with them, and laid them on the table: a cigar-case, a mysterious round box of white metal--sort of box you buy "Blanco" in--and another round object concealed in a crushed paper-bag. He opened the first.
""Have a cigar," he invited me. "They smoke between the courses in this place--proper thing to do."
""Sanitary precaution," I suggested. "I"ll be content with a cigarette for the present. What are your other disinfectants?"
"He laughed, very suddenly and violently. "Disinfectants?"
he chortled; "that"s a good "un! They"re exhibits, my dear sir--pardon-liberty-calling-you-Dear-sir. Stewards collected a dozen, these infernal machines--"
""There"s no need to shout," said I. No, Otty I was sober.
. . . But I looked around and it struck me that the faces at the near tables were bright, and white, and curiously distinct in the cigarette-smoke.
""I am not shouting," Farrell protested: but he was, and at that moment. "Disinfectants? That box, there--there"s a bottle inside-- sulphuretted hydrogen. T"other joker"s a firework of sorts.
I brought "em along for evidence. . . . Wha"s that?" He jerked himself bolt upright, staring at a dish the waiter held under his nose.
""It"s the _tete de veau en spaghetti_ you ordered, sir," said Giovanni.
""Did I? I don"t remember it. Do _you_ remember my ordering tait-de-whatever it calls itself?" he asked me earnestly.
"Well, I couldn"t, and I said so.
""If I did," commanded Farrell, "take it away and let me forget it.
This place is not what it was. . . . Take it away, you Corsican Brother, and bring me the bill! Look here," said he as Giovanni departed. "We"ll get out of this and try something better. What do you say to looking in at the Ritz?" He lit his cigar and poured out more champagne.
""As you like," said I. "Let"s get out of this anyway. For my part, I"ve had enough."
""Well, _I_ haven"t," said he, and fixed a stare on me.
"Oh, I see what you mean. I"m drunk. . . . It"s no use your pretending," he caught me up argumentatively. "I"ve taken too much t"drink. Tiring day. Hope you"re not a prude?"
""Well then," I confessed, "it did strike me you were punishing the other fellow a bit too fast in the opening rounds. But you walked over to your corner, just now, steady as a soldier--"
""Peculiarity of mine," he explained. "Ought t"have warned you.
Takes me in head, long before legs. Do you a sprint down the street--even money--when we"re outside. . . . Wha"s this? Oh, the bill. . . . Thought it was more spaghetti. . . . Yes, I know. . . .
Custom of house . . . pay the signora in the bra.s.s cage. My dear sir, if you"ll "scuse fam"liarity--"
""Right," said I, as he dived a hand into his pocket and fetched out a fistful of coin. "Here"s half-a-crown for Giovanni--he will now run along and poison somebody else. This being your show, I further abstract two sovereigns for the bill. I shall, I perceive, have to hand you ninepence in cash with the receipt. . . . But since you are intoxicated and I am what in any less sepulchral caravanserai might be described as merry, let us order our retreat with military precision. First, then, I fetch you yonder magnificent garment which has been drawing revolutionary hatred upon us ever since we entered . . ."
""It was a present from Maria," he said, as I helped him into it.
"Her last. She said it was a real sable."
""She spoke truthfully," I a.s.sured him. "Now gather up these light articles and steer for the door as accurately as you can, while I gather up my inexpensive paletot and pay at the desk."
""If I had my way with this blasted restarong," he observed with sudden venom," I"d raze it to the ground!"
"I walked over to the desk. I was right in supposing that ninepence was the sum I should receive from the Esmeralda behind the bra.s.s barrier. But her eyes were bright and interrogated me: the bra.s.s trellis between us shone also with an unnatural l.u.s.tre: I was dealing with another man"s money, and it seemed inc.u.mbent on me to count the change twice, with care.
"While I was thus engaged, Farrell went past me for the door with the shuffle and hard breathing of an elephant pursued by a forest fire.
""Hurry!" he gasped.
""What is it?" I demanded, catching him up on the fifth stair.
"He panted. "I couldn"t help it. . . . Sodom and Gomorrah . . . basaltic, I"ve heard . . . we"d better run!"