Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/151

Rh simple eloquence on the horrors of gluttony and the captivating process in a man of Sir Reginald's age. I listened to his diatribes with patient politeness. Presently I found that his temper towards his proposed prey was growing worse, since Sir Reginald's habit of keeping early hours made it very difficult to find a reasonable opportunity for his removal. To Bottiger he assumed the forbidding appearance of a stubborn enemy impregnably entrenched behind the gas lamps of London.

Chelubai's method of overcoming my resolution was different. He nagged and nagged. He nagged at me about my blindness to the claims of Humanity; he nagged at me about my forgetfulness of the sick children, and he nagged at me for "gagging the dictates"—his own phrases—of my better nature. I often pained him by my truculence.

I withstood their efforts, and my resolution would have remained unbroken, for all my sympathy with their just wrongs as bridge players, had not Sir Reginald himself sapped it. By some accident Angel and I chanced to be lunching at the Café Royal.

In the middle of lunch she said: "There's such a funny old gentleman sitting behind you, and he keeps looking at me in the funniest way. I think his eyes are coming out of his head."