A Poached Peerage Part 13

"Slightly. The animal began to feel quite comfortable, and after a bit sat down."

"Sat down?" laughed Gage. "What became of you?"

"Well, I don't know," answered Peckover, with rueful humour, "whether it has ever struck you, in Tasmania or elsewhere, that it is a difficult thing for a horse and its rider both to sit down at the same time. You see, there is no back to the saddle, so I just slid down over the tail, with as much side as I could put on, and then footed it off. It's all very well for you to laugh, my lord," he remonstrated, as the other man's guffaws grew exasperating, "but it would take you all your time to keep your back stiff when the horse under you is sitting up like a cat, and the back of his head trying to play the castanets with your front teeth. Harlequin? He's a regular pantomime rally."

"I shouldn't wonder," suggested Gage, "if he was called Harlequin, because he'll jump through anything."

"Dare say!" replied Peckover dryly. "No doubt he'd have tried jumping through a brick wall if I'd stayed there long enough. No, thank you.

I prefer seeing these little funniments from the top of the Grand Stand, not from the top of the performer."

CHAPTER XIII

"Can't say I notice much family likeness, old man." Peckover had been enjoying the novelty of a contemplative cigarette in the ancestral picture gallery of the Quorns, and was there surprised by Gage who had stood for a while silently comparing the portraits of dead and gone Quorns, in all stages of costume and self-consciousness, with the cheap, up-to-date c.o.c.kney swell who sprawled in a great chair of state before them. "I guess they didn't pick you out in Australia by the family mug."

Peckover gave a short awkward laugh. "I should hope not," he replied, recovering his mental balance. "If I thought I was anything like that tuppence-coloured Johnnie I'd go and hang myself." He pointed to a depressing portrait labelled, "Everard, fourth Baron Quorn." "Good old Everard," he went on. "I've no use for a nose like that, nor for the dial of that old juggins in the Dutch oven--what's his name?

Marmaduke. He'd only have to take the top off the pepper-castor to give the enemy a shock. Useful face that to fall back on, and it looks as though some one had been falling back on it." And he flicked the ash off his cigarette scornfully at the doughty warrior.

"We don't run to beauty, do we?" Gage remarked. "At least we didn't till quite recently," he corrected politely.

"Fact is," said Peckover, "the old crowd were an over-rated lot.

Making allowances for bad workmans.h.i.+p on the painters' side, we should have no use for them except on the Fifth of November. They are fair frauds. What do you think of a man who wears a steel lounge suit like that?" He flung the end of his cigarette, having lighted a fresh one, at the nearest suit of armour.

"Well, it covered up his deficiencies," observed Gage.

"Yes," said Peckover, "it's about as clever as wrapping a twopenny smoke in silver-foil."

Gage gave a look round the gallery as though to see that they were alone, and then sat down beside his friend. "Tell you what it is, old man," he said seriously; "to change the subject, we must do something to make things hum a bit more for me. I became my lord to get some fun out of it, but as things are, it strikes me that I've got the empty t.i.tle, and you're having all the fun."

"What do you mean?"

"Why," Gage proceeded, "what's my position here? I'm Lord Quorn with a million of money; but because Lord Q. is known to have next to nothing a year, n.o.body looks at me. You're supposed to be the millionaire and every one runs after you."

"Is that my fault?" Peckover asked pertinently.

"I don't say it is," Gage returned. "It suited our purpose to fix it so. But it don't work. There must be a change. I don't pay five thousand a year to stand out in the cold on the bleak eminence of an impoverished peerage, looking on and seeing every girl in the place tumbling into your arms."

"One can have too much of that sort of tumbling," Peckover remarked sententiously. "And----"

"Well, I'd like a little of it," snapped Gage, "and I'm going to have it."

"That's reasonable," Peckover agreed. "What do you propose?"

"Well," answered Gage, "I've thought it out, and it's simple enough.

I've got to find an excuse for spending my money, or, rather for having money to spend. I've a plan. I'm going to save your life."

"What?" Peckover jumped a foot away and turned a suspicious and alarmed face on his companion. "What--what do you mean?"

"Just what I say," the other replied quietly. "I've got to save your life----"

"What from?" Peckover inquired apprehensively.

"Drowning, for choice," was the cool answer. "Then in common grat.i.tude you will make over to me a sum sufficient to give me a handsome income.

See?"

Peckover looked immeasurably relieved. "I see that much," he replied.

"But how are you going to save me from drowning?"

"Well, that presents no difficulty. We are going fis.h.i.+ng on the lake, and you are going to over-balance yourself in your excitement and slip overboard."

"Oh, am I?" Peckover looked uneasily doubtful. "I don't see where the excitement about fis.h.i.+ng comes in."

"That's a detail."

"Then I can't swim," Peckover objected.

"All the more reason for my jumping in to save you."

"But supposing you don't save me?"

"I'm bound to save you. If I'm not going to rescue you, there is no point in your getting wet."

"If you are not going to rescue me there's no point in my getting drowned," Peckover returned, with misgiving.

"I shall work it all right," Gage a.s.sured him. "Never let go of you.

You're too precious."

"I don't know. It would be worth five thousand a year to you to let me dive to the bottom and stay there."

"I'm neither a fool nor a murderer," Gage declared.

"Not much catch in taking a cold bath with your clothes on," Peckover remarked, with an uneasy s.h.i.+ver. "However, I suppose I must do it."

"Yes," said Gage, "after all it's the most feasible form of life-saving, combining as it does the minimum of risk with the maximum of effectiveness."

So it was arranged, and the next afternoon the confederates, dressed for the occasion in their oldest clothes, went fis.h.i.+ng on the lake.

Peckover, whilst ostensibly inst.i.tuting inquiries as to the best pools for sport, had cunningly obtained information as to the depth of the water at various spots, and it was at one of the shallowest that he insisted on having the punt moored.

"What's the good of my pretending to save your precious life in four foot six of water," Gage expostulated in a disgusted tone, as he pointed to the watermark on the punt pole. "We shall be taken for blithering idiots."

"That won't matter," returned Peckover stolidly. "It's better than being blithering idiots, and dead ones at that."

"We shall give the show away."

"Better than giving a peerage and a million away," Peckover retorted.

"Life's too comfortable just now for us to run any risks. Besides who's going to remember how shallow the water is; and it stands to reason that if we could keep our breathing apparatus above water by just standing up, we shouldn't be such fools as to want any swimming and life-saving."