Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/181

 I fancied it was the addition of the eyeglass which discomposed his expression, but almost immediately I realised that the change was due to a cause more violent.

"B—ah Jove!" he ejaculated. And then, "'Pon my word, what damned impertinence!" He stood glaring at me through that eyeglass with such an "I am the Duke of Omnium, who the devil are you?" sort of expression that I thought he must be mad, and I stared also, in amazed silence.

After looking me up and down he began again. "What do you mean by it, I want to know, swaggering about here, among gentlemen, as if you were one of Us? I'll have you put out by the waiters." With this extraordinary outburst he turned on his heel, and was making off towards the club-house; but as you know, my temper is not of the sweetest, and mad or not mad, I didn't exactly yearn over Mr. Payne. I took advantage of the long legs about which "my friend Montie" has occasionally chaffed me and caught him up. I cannot conceal from you that I did more. I gripped him by the shoulder. I held him firmly, apparently somewhat against his will. I also shook him, and it now comes dimly back to me that his eyeglass jumped out of his eye.

"You damned cad!" I then remarked in a tone which some people might consider abrupt; "what in h do you mean?"

He took to stuttering—some men do in emergencies—and I knew from that instant that he couldn't drive a motor-car. "L—et go," he stammered like a schoolboy. "You—you—confounded chauffeur, you!