Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/83

 He knew instinctively that he was not of the sort of men the Camden caliber picked out for acquaintanceship, not even on a ship like the Ajax. What was he really fishing for? Why should this matinée idol bother to ask William Grogan what the school-teacher's name was, when all he had to do was to look at the dining-room chart? The puzzle was not solvable.

"Pumping me, all right. But I know all about pumps; and a lot you'll get up through my pipes, Percival." Nevertheless, he sought his chair, vaguely perturbed; and it took him some time to get back into the final pages of Cellini. He had laid the book aside and was in a half-dream when he heard the foot-rest of the other chair rattle. He jumped to his feet.

"Good morning," he greeted.

"Good morning. No, thanks; don't bother with the rugs. You're a good sailor, too, it seems. Isn't it wonderful, the sky, the sea, and the wind? So you've finished Messer Cellini? Isn't that a tremendous chronicle? Think of being a personal friend of Michelangelo and his contemporaries!"

"Say, if he was alive, we wouldn't need to worry about white hopes. He wouldn't spill the beans over a pound or two in weight."

"Beans?"

"Aw, there I go, into the rough-neck stuff again! I've got so used to talking that way I can't help it."

"Perhaps you don't try hard enough."