Page:Magician 1908.djvu/42

 “Hail, brother wizard! I greet in you, if not a master, at least a student not unworthy of my esteem.”

Susie was convulsed with laughter at his pompousness, and he turned to her with the utmost gravity.

“Madam, your laughter is more soft in mine ears than the singing of Bulbul in a Persian garden.”

Dr. Porhoët interposed with introductions. The magician bowed solemnly as he was in turn made known to Susie Boyd, and Margaret, and Arthur Burdon. He held out his hand to the grim Irish painter.

“Well, my O’Brien, have you been mixing as usual the waters of bitterness with the thin claret of Bordeaux?”

“Why don’t you sit down and eat your dinner?” returned the other, gruffly.

“Ah, my dear fellow, I wish I could drive the fact into this head of yours that rudeness is not synonymous with wit. I shall not have lived in vain if I teach you in time to realise that the rapier of irony is more effective an instrument than the bludgeon of insolence.”

O’Brien reddened with anger, but could not at once find a retort, and Haddo passed on to that faded, harmless youth who sat next to Margaret.

“Do my eyes deceive me, or is this the Jagson whose name in its inanity is so appropriate to the bearer? I am eager to know if you still devote upon the ungrateful arts talents which were more profitably employed upon haberdashery.”