keep me out pretty well all day, and every day--but then, there was
always the evening.

To me there was a humorous element underlying even this situation, and
it spelt Trask. Trask's disgust on finding Pentridge already in the
field was quite comical. He could no longer monopolise the
conversation, and when he started in to be funny, Pentridge, without
seeming to do so, would invariably cap his would-be wit, and effectually
turn it against himself. In short, to use a homely metaphor, Trask's
nose was put clean out of joint.

"Who the deuce is that bounder Pentridge, Holt?" he said to me one day
when we were alone together.

"First, I don't know. Second, he's rather a good chap."

"Eh? Rather a good chap? Man alive! I should have thought if any one
would wish him to the devil it'd be you."

"Well, I don't. I like the chap," I rejoined, shortly.

Trask fired off a long whistle.

"That's good," he said. "That's good, coming from you of all people,
Holt. Why he's cutting you out all along the line."

Then I fired off a speech.

"I won't pretend to misunderstand you, Trask," I said. "But that sort
of remark is in the rottenest taste, in fact downright caddish. And
look here. For a good while past you have laid yourself out to try and
make me a butt for your stodgy wit. Well, I've had enough of that--more
than enough. So chuck it. See? Chuck it."

"Oh, all right, Holt. Keep your hair on, old man. How beastly `short'
you've got in these days. You usen't to be."

There was an insinuation here conveyed that did not tend to soothe me,
but possibly it was unintentional. Trask had a way of climbing down if
tackled direct, that disarmed resentment. To do him justice, I don't
think it was due to cowardice, but to a feeling that he had gone too
far, and a natural shrinking on the part of a man not actually drunk or
an idiot, from the possibility of being made to look foolish in a row of
his own bringing on.

One wet and drizzling day George, who was riding round the place with me
during one of my tours of inspection, burst forth with--

"Man, but that chap Pentridge is dead spoons on Beryl."

"What are you talking about?" I said, rather roughly, not relishing the
topic, yet not unwilling, curiously enough, that he should pursue it.

"Why, of course he is. Any fool could see that. Why, they're always
together, and then the way he looks, and the way he talks to her. I
mean not what he says,