'Ah! That's the trained legal intellect. Like mastering a brief. I haven't got it.' He wiped his eyes and shook.
'Hi!' said Penfentenyou, looking through the stained glass window down the garden. 'What's that!'
A household removals van, in charge of four men, had halted at the gate. A husband and his wife householders beyond question--quavered irresolutely up the path. He looked tired. She was certainly cross. In all this haphazard world the last couple to understand a scientific experiment.
I laid hands on Jimmy--the clamour above drowning speech and with Penfentenyou's aid, propped him against the window, that he should see.
He saw, nodded, fell as an umbrella can fall, and kneeling, beat his forehead on the shut door. Penfentenyou slid the bolt.
The furniture men reinforced the two figures on the path, and advanced, spreading generously.
'Hadn't we better warn them up-stairs?' I suggested:
'No. I'll die first!' said Jimmy. 'I'm pretty near it now. Besides, they called me names.'
I turned from the Artist to the Administrator.
'Coeteris paribus, I think we'd better be going,' said Penfentenyou, dealer in crises.
'Ta--take me with you,' said Jimmy. 'I've no reputation to lose, but I'd like to watch 'em from--er--outside the picture.'
'There's always a modus viviendi,' Penfentenyou murmured, and tiptoed along the hall to a back door, which he opened quite silently. We passed into a tangle of gooseberry bushes where, at his statesmanlike example, we crawled on all fours, and regained the hedge.
Here we lay up, secure in our alibi.
'But your firm,'--the woman was wailing to the furniture removals men--'your firm promised me everything should be in yesterday. And it's to-day! You should have been here yesterday!'
'The last tenants ain't out yet, lydy,' said one of them.
Lord Lundie was rapidly improving in technique, though organ-grinding, unlike the Law, is more of a calling than a trade, and he hung occasionally on a dead centre. Giuseppe, I think, was singing, but I could not understand the drift of Sir Christopher's remarks. They were Spanish.
The woman said something we did not catch.
'You might 'ave sub-let it,' the man insisted. 'Or your gentleman 'ere might.'
'But I didn't. Send for the Police at once.'
'I wouldn't do that, lydy. They're only fruit pickers on a beano. They aren't particular where they sleep.'
'D'you mean they've been sleeping there? I only had it cleaned last week. Get them out.'
'Oh, if you say so, we'll 'ave 'em out of it in two twos. Alf, fetch me the spare swingle-bar.'
'Don't! You'll knock the paint off the door. Get them out!'
'What the 'ell else am I trying to do for you, lydy?' the man answered with pathos; but the woman wheeled on her mate.
'Edward! They're all drunk here, and they're all mad there. Do something!' she said.
Edward took one short step forward, and sighed 'Hullo!' in the direction of the turbulent house. The woman walked up and down, the very figure of Domestic Tragedy. The furniture men swayed a little on their heels, and -
'Got him!' The shout rang through all the windows at once. It was followed by a blood-hound-like bay from Sir Christopher, a maniacal prestissimo on the organ, and loud cries, for Jimmy. But Jimmy, at my side, rolled his congested eyeballs, owl-wise.
'I never knew them,' he said. 'I'm an orphan.'
The front, door opened, and the three came forth to short-lived triumph. I had never before seen a Law Lord dressed as for tennis, with a stump-leg barrel-organ strapped to his shoulder. But it is a shy bird in this plumage. Lord Lundie strove to disembarrass himself of his accoutrements much as an ill-trained Punch and Judy dog tries to escape backwards through his frilled collar. Sir Christopher, covered with limewash, cherished a bleeding thumb, and the almost crazy monkey tore at Giuseppe's hair.
The men on both sides reeled, but the woman stood her ground. 'Idiots!' she said, and once more, 'Idiots!'
I could have gladdened a few convicts of my acquaintance with a photograph of Lord Lundie at that instant.
'Madam,' he began, wonderfully preserving the roll in his voice, 'it was a monkey.'
Sir Christopher sucked his thumb and nodded.
'Take it away and go,' she replied. 'Go away!'
I would have gone, and gladly, on this permission, but these still strong men must ever be justifying themselves. Lord Lundie turned to the husband, who for the first time spoke.
'I have rented this house. I am moving in,' he said.
'We ought to have been in yesterday,' the woman interrupted.
'Yes. We ought to have been in yesterday. Have you slept there overnight?' said the man peevishly.
'No; I assure you we haven't,' said Lord Lundie.
