Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/102

96 came. Driver set down his cup on his right hand in a most convenient position, took his liqueur and chose a cigar with scarcely a glance at it, so absorbed was he in the story. Chelubai came to the end of it.

"Rascally thieves!" cried Honest John Driver, with honest indignation.

Chelubai upset his glass of brandy. Driver's mouth opened, he grabbed at his napkin and dabbed at the spilt spirit. Angel's right wrist came deftly down into the hollow of her left arm, her hand hung for three seconds above Driver's cup and rose again.

"Bang went half-a-crown!" cried Honest John Driver, and laughed heartily. Chelubai and I laughed with him, and I heard Angel gasp.

"Bang it went!" cried Chelubai, helping himself to another glass of brandy, and plunging into another business yarn.

Driver drank his coffee like a man. He made something of a wry face over it indeed, but he would by no means appear not to know a good thing when he got it. We were all keen attention watching for the first symptoms, which, thanks to Bottiger, we knew well, of the working of the drug. Chelubai began to reel off yet another business yarn, a long one, and he was but half-way through it when we saw that Driver could not keep his mind on it. He passed his hand over his