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"Very possibly. For what?" "I--the fact is, I owed it to a fellow." "Ha! How did you come to owe it?" His lordship shuffled. "You have been gambling," boomed Sit Thomas "Am I right?" "No, no. I say, no, no. It wasn't gambling. It was a game of skill. We were playing picquet." "Kindly refrain from quibbling. You lost this money at cards, then, as I supposed. Just so." He widened the space between his feet. He intensified his glare. He might have been posing to an illustrator of "Pilgrim's Progress" for a picture of "Apollyon straddling right across the way." "So," he said, "you deliberately concealed from me the contents of that letter in order that you might extract money from me under false pretenses? Don't speak!" His lordship had gurgled, "You did! Your behavior was that of a--of a--" There was a very fair selection of evil-doers in all branches of business from which to choose. He gave the preference to the race-track. "--of a common welsher," he concluded. "But I won't put up with it. No, not for an instant! I insist upon your returning that money to me here and now. If you have not got it with you, go and fetch it." His lordship's face betrayed the deepest consternation. He had been prepared for much, but not for this. That he would have to undergo what in his school-days he would have called "a jaw" was inevitable, and he had been ready to go through with it. It might hurt his feelings, possibly, but it would leave his purse intact. A ghastly development of this kind he had not foreseen. "But, I say, uncle!" he bleated. Sir Thomas silenced him with a grand gesture. Ruefully, his lordship produced his little all. Sir Thomas took it with a snort, and went to the door. Saunders was still brooding statuesquely over the gong. "Sound it!" said Sir Thomas. Saunders obeyed him, with the air of an unleashed hound. "And now," said Sir Thomas, "go to my dressing-room, and place these notes in the small drawer of the table." The butler's calm, expressionless, yet withal observant eye took in at a glance the signs of trouble. Neither the inflated air of Sir Thomas nor the punctured-balloon bearing of Lord Dreever escaped him. "Something h'up," he said to his immortal soul, as he moved upstairs. "Been a fair old, rare old row, seems to me!" He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. In conversation with his immortal soul, he was wont to unbend somewhat.
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