The Girl on the Boat Part 28

Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants'

hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a movement which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the cake-walk and the grace of the old-fas.h.i.+oned mazurka.

"What the devil are you doing, you fool?" cried Mr. Bennett.

"Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week's notice," replied Webster calmly.

"What's that?"

"My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at."

"Oh, go to blazes!"

"Very good, sir." Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the stairs.

"Mortimer!"

"Oh, what _is_ it?"

"That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it."

"What's it been doing?"

"The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up on that d.a.m.ned castle the whole of the morning!"

"Father darling," interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs, "you mustn't get excited. You know it's bad for you. I don't expect poor old Smith meant any harm," she added pacifically, as she disappeared in the direction of the landing.

"Of course he didn't," snapped Mr. Mortimer. "He's as quiet as a lamb."

"I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had to run like a hare!"

The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up.

"C'k!" giggled Bream helplessly. "C'k, c'k, c'k!"

Mr. Bennett turned on him. "Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well, let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me with--with--er--with one hand and--and--marry my daughter with the other, you're wrong! You can consider your engagement at an end."

"Oh, I say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bream, abruptly sobered.

"Mortimer!" bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was about to mount the stairs. "Do you or do you not intend to destroy that dog?"

"I do not."

"I insist on your doing so. He is a menace."

"He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn't even bite you once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce _v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly."

"I don't care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss...."

"You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent."

There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python.

"Say, Mr. Bennett...." began Bream at his elbow.

"Get out!" snarled Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, but, say...!"

The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster appeared.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Webster, "but luncheon will be served within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change of costume."

"Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room," said Mr. Bennett. "I am going to bed."

"Very good, sir."

"But, say, Mr. Bennett...." resumed Bream.

"Grrh!" replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the main body.

-- 4

Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of suns.h.i.+ne, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his pa.s.sion for lobsters had made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on.

"Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection.

"There was nothing wrong with the lunch."

How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment of lobster sh.e.l.l, which had been working its way silently into the tip of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known.

"The lunch," said Mr. Bennett, "was excellent. Lobsters!" He licked his lips appreciatively.

"And, talking of lobsters," he went on, "I suppose that boy Bream has told you that I have broken off your engagement?"

"Yes."

"You don't seem very upset," said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for a dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed.

"Oh, I've become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything." Billie gazed wistfully at the counterpane. "Do you know, father, I'm beginning to think that I'm rather impulsive. I wish I didn't do silly things in such a hurry."

"I don't see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You took ten years to make up your mind."

"I was not thinking of Bream. Another man."