The Simpkins Plot Part 27

"You could, Sabina. Don't raise frivolous difficulties. Anybody could keep an egg until it was stale."

"Not in this house."

"And why not?"

"Because they'd be ate," said Sabina. "Whatever many eggs the hens might lay they'd be ate by some one before they were a day in the house, and I couldn't keep them. There was a little Plymouth Rock hen that was wanting to sit here last week, and it took me all I could do and more to get the eggs saved up for her, and at the latter end I had only nine."

"Is she sitting yet!"

"She is, of course."

"Then you might try the judge with the eggs that's under her."

"I will not, then. Is it after all the trouble I had with her, and the chickens will be out early next week. I never heard of the like."

"Well," said Meldon, "I'll have to leave the boiled eggs to you, Sabina, but I'll be disappointed in you if the judge eats them. Do you think now that you thoroughly understand what you've got to do?"

"I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"Then I'll say good-bye to you. I'm much obliged to you for the cup of tea. And remember, Sabina, this isn't any kind of a joke. It's serious business, and I mean every word I say. It's most important that the judge should leave Ballymoy as soon as possible."

"Is it persecuting the League boys he's after?" said Sabina. "For there's a cousin of my own that's in with them, and--"

"Brother of the red-haired girl at Mr. Simpkins?"

"He is; and I wouldn't like any harm would come to him."

"You act as I have told you, and no harm will come to him. But if the judge stays on here it's impossible to say what may happen. You know what judges are, Sabina."

"I've heard tell of them, and it's mighty little good is ever said of them or their like."

"Quite so," said Meldon. "So you do your best to get this one out of Ballymoy."

CHAPTER XV.

Meldon, although he still kept Doyle's bicycle, did not arrive at Portsmouth Lodge until after eight o'clock. Major Kent had waited dinner for him, and was therefore, as even the best men are under such circ.u.mstances, in a very bad temper. When Meldon walked into the study he was sitting with _The Times_ spread out on his knee.

"I have had," said Meldon, "a long and particularly exhausting kind of day. I didn't get much lunch with the judge at Donard, and although I had a cup of tea with Sabina Gallagher at the hotel, I had so much to say to her that I didn't eat much. I hope dinner's ready."

"Dinner," growled the Major, "has been ready for more than an hour."

"Good," said Meldon. "I'm certainly ready for it. Come on."

"I wish to goodness," said the Major, rising, "that you'd occasionally try to be in time for a meal."

"There's no use wis.h.i.+ng that. I won't. It's a matter of principle with me. I regard punctuality as the vice of little minds. Time is meant to be the servant, not the master of--"

"Don't begin a tirade," said the Major, "but let us get at what's left of our dinner. There won't be much, and what there is will be charred."

"Wait a minute," said Meldon. "I don't deny that I'm hungry and tired, but I'd rather ride all the way back to Donard than sit down at table with you in the temper you're in at present."

"It'll be worse," said the Major, "if I'm kept waiting any longer. And I know what your tirades are. If you start on a vague sort of subject like time you'll be at it for an hour before you've finished."

"Very well," said Meldon. "As a matter of fact, what I wanted to say wouldn't have taken five minutes, and I could have said it while you were ladling out the soup. But if you'd rather gorge down your food like a wild beast in a cavern without the civilising accompaniment of intellectual conversation, you can. I shan't mind. I may perhaps say, however, that everybody doesn't share your tastes. Sir Gilbert Hawkesby welcomed what I had to say about Milton at lunch to-day, and showed that he'd not only read 'Samson Agonistes,' but--"

"The dinner is spoiled, any way," said the Major. "I suppose another hour won't make it any worse. Will you be able to finish that disquisition in an hour, do you think, J. J.?"

"I've finished now; so we can go in to our dinner and eat it. It may be, as you say, spoiled; but it can't be nearly so objectionable as what poor Sir Gilbert Hawkesby is trying to eat at the present moment.

That ought to be some consolation to you."

"What's that you're saying about the judge's dinner?"

"Merely that it's in a much worse state than yours. A little too much cooking is all you have to complain of. His dinner is soaked in paraffin oil. But come along, Major; the thought of his sufferings needn't prevent our satisfying our appet.i.tes."

"What have you been doing, J. J.? Tell me, like a good fellow. I'd like to know the worst at once."

"Nothing would induce me," said Meldon, "to start another tirade while you're hungry. It wouldn't be fair to you."

"I shan't be able to eat comfortably, J. J., with the thought of what you may have been doing hanging over my head. I shall be imagining all the time that it's something even worse than it really is. What have you done to the judge?"

"A disquisition," said Meldon--"as well as I recollect disquisition was the second word you used--on that subject would certainly last an hour, and by that time your dinner would be almost, if not quite, in as bad a state as the judge's. I'm going into the dining-room. You can stay here if you like, but I advise you to come with me."

The Major rose with a sigh, and followed his guest into the dining-room. The soup was nearly cold. So, when they appeared a little later, were the potatoes and the spinach. The leg of mutton was hot but badly burned. Meldon ate heartily. The Major laid down his knife and fork with a sigh.

"You said you were hungry," said Meldon. "Why don't you eat?"

"My appet.i.te is gone," said the Major. "I'm too nervous about you and that judge to care about food. Besides, look at that"--he prodded a piece of charred mutton with his fork as he spoke--"how can I eat that?"

"You'd like it even less if it tasted of paraffin oil. That's what the judge is having to put up with. I daresay he'd be glad enough to change places with you."

"Tell me what you did, J. J. You must have eaten enough of that mutton now."

"I've had," said Meldon, leaning back in his chair, "a long and exhausting day. It has also been a disappointing day. I haven't accomplished all I hoped."

"You never do."

"On the contrary, I always do--in the end. My first plan for keeping the judge out of Ballymoy failed. I frankly admit that. It failed because the judge turns out to be a pig-headed and obstinate man, who doesn't know what's good for him. I told him distinctly that if he came to Doyle's hotel he'd get typhoid fever and die. O'Donoghue backed me up. But we didn't produce the slightest effect on the judge.

His att.i.tude reminded me of that saying of Napoleon's about Englishmen being such fools that they don't know when they are beaten. This wretched judge thinks he can defy disease germs, which of course he can't."

"The fact being," said the Major, "that he recognised at a glance the kind of man you are, and knew that he needn't believe a word you said.

I rather respect the judge."

"You like to put it that way," said Meldon; "but as a matter of fact it was I who recognised the sort of man he is. I see now--I saw before I had been a quarter of an hour in his company--that there is absolutely no use making any further appeal to his intellect. If I'd known that he was such a thorough Englishman as he turns out to be, I shouldn't have wasted my time in trying to reason with him. I should have gone straight to the only part of him which an Englishman really dislikes having touched--his stomach."

"Look here, J. J.," said the Major, "I don't mind your scoffing at Englishmen now and then. I know you don't really mean it, but you oughtn't to go too far. Remember I'm an Englishman myself by descent, and I have some feelings. Try not to be offensive. I'm not always saying nasty things about Irishmen to you."