Page:The Firm of Gridlestone (1890).djvu/126

114 the very model and type of respectable composure. As the plan was gradually unfolded, however, the old soldier began to puff harder at his cigar until a continuous thick grey cloud rose up from him, through which the lurid tip of the havannah shone like a murky meteor. From time to time he passed his hand down his puffy cheeks, as was his custom when excited. Then he moved uneasily in his chair, cleared his throat huskily, and showed other signs of restlessness, all of which were hailed by Ezra Girdlestone as unmistakable proofs of the correctness of his judgment and of the not unnatural eagerness of the veteran on hearing of the windfall which chance had placed in his way.

When the young man had finished, the major stood up with his face to the empty fire-place, his legs apart, his chest inflated, and his body rocking ponderously backwards and forwards.

"Let me be quite sure that I understand you," he said. "You wish me to go to Russia?"

"Quite so," Ezra remarked, rubbing his hands pleasantly.

"You have the goodness to suggist that on me way I should rook me fellow-passengers in the boat?"

"That is to say, if you think it worth your while."

"Quite so, if I think it worth me while. I am then to procade across the counthry to some mountains"

"The Urals."

"And there I am to pretind to discover certain diamond mines, and am to give weight to me story by the fact that I am known to be a man of good birth, and also by exhibiting some rough stones which you wish me to take out with me from England?"

"Quite right, major," Ezra said encouragingly.

"I am then to tilegraph or write this lie to England and git it inserted in the papers?"

"That's an ugly word," Ezra remonstrated. "This 'report' we will say. A report may be either true or false, you know."

"And by this report, thin," the major continued, "you