Page:Francis Crawford - Mr Isaacs.djvu/162

 "Dear me, how very interesting!" exclaimed Mr. Ghyrkins, looking up from his hill mutton as Isaacs finished, and a little murmur of sympathetic applause went round the table.

"I would give a great deal to have been through all that," said Lord Steepleton, slowly proceeding to sip a glass of claret.

"Just think!" ejaculated John Westonhaugh. "And I was entertaining such a Sinbad unawares!" and he took another green pepper from the dish his servant handed him.

"Upon my word, Isaacs," I said, "some one ought to make a novel of that story; it would sell like wild-fire."

"Why don't you do it yourself, Griggs?" he asked. "You are a pressman, and I am sure you are welcome to the whole thing."

"I will," I answered.

"Oh do, Mr. Griggs," said the young lady, "and make it wind up with a tiger-hunt. You could lay the scene in Australia or the Barbadoes, or some of those places, and put us all in—and kill us all off, if you like, you know. It would be such fun." Poor Miss Westonhaugh!

"It is easy to see what you are thinking about most, Miss Westonhaugh," said Lord Steepleton: "the tigers are uppermost in your mind; and therefore in mine also," he added gallantly.

"Indeed, no—I was thinking about Mr. Isaacs." She blushed scarlet—the first time I had ever seen her