Page:Such Is Life.djvu/243

Rh "Well, I won't!" exclaimed the young fellow, after a moment's pause. "I don't mind telling a lie when I'm driven to it; but a woman's a woman. Do your own dirty work!"

"Then, by Jove, I'll post you!"

If anyone had used this threat to me, I would have asked how the posting was usually done, and what results might be expected to follow; but Moriarty's lip quivered under the threat.

"Do your worst," said he, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"You may depend on that," I replied quietly. "However, the scandal was only about myself."

"I don't understand."

"I'll enlighten you. I was going to ask you to take Nelson, or Mooney, or both of them, into your confidence. Then you would arrange that Mrs. Beaudesart should overhear you discussing some horrible scandal in connection with me. And mind, she would have to believe it, or you would be a ruined man for the rest of your life—you would be a defaulting gambler, a byword, a hissing, an astonishment, with the curse of Cain upon your brow. Then she would spurn me with contumely, and I would be my own man again. I would be in sanctuary, so to speak; inviolable by reason of my disgrace. Metaphorically, you could lay the blast, and fire it at your leisure, in my absence. I would leave all details to your own judgment, only holding you responsible for quality of fuse, and quantity of powder. I'd stand the explosion."

"I'm on!" exclaimed Moriarty, brightening up. "Gosh! I'll give you a character to rights! Mind, it'll make you look small."

"The smaller the better. I have a small aperture to crawl through, and no other means of escape. Of course, being innocent all the time, the scandal won't even fizz on my inner consciousness. In fact, I'll feel myself taking a rise out of everyone that believes the yarn; and I'll live it down in good time. Now lay your plans carefully, Moriarty, and make a clean job of it, for your own sake."

This being definitely settled, I soon demonstrated to the young fellow that his case, as regarded other liabilities, was by no means desperate; and his elastic temperament asserted itself at once. I may add, in passing, that he has never broken his anti-gambling pledge; also, that my £50 remains unpaid to this day.

"Now I must go and catch my horses," said I. "Can you come?"

"Hold on," replied Moriarty; "here comes Toby; we'll send him."

As the half-caste lounged out of the front door of the hut, the cook went out by the back door, and gathered an armful of firewood. Toby turned, and glided back into the hut, and, a moment later, the cook also re-entered, at the opposite side. Then the prince bounded out through the front door, with a triumphant grin on his brown face, and an enormous cockroach of black sugar in his hand. The next moment, a piece of firewood whizzed through the open door, smote H.R.H. full on Love of Approbation, ricochetted from his gun-metal skull, and banged against the weatherboard wall of an out-house.