The lawyer looked blankly at Imogene, and then, retreating from the close and unpleasant proximity of the pistol, sank into his armchair.
“Put it down, girl! Put that pistol down for heaven’s sake, for how can I think whilst I am being made a target of?”
Imogene lowered the weapon.
“I really don’t know what to say,” went on the wretched old man. “I am entirely fogged out of all vision. Muddled, muddled—entirely muddled. I wish you would let my wife come in. Oh, how I do wish you would! Whatever her faults may be, she is really most excellent at thinking out difficulties of this kind. In fact, I must confess that she does all my thinking work for me. Women sometimes, you know, have most excellent brains—quick brains. They have, you know. Really they have. Quick tongues, too. My wife has. Oh, yes, really, you know, she’s got both, and the tongue part of her is developed to a most astonishing degree. But give her her due. Give her her due. So’s her brain. So’s her brain. A most clever brain—most clever. Very quick; exceptionally alert. As clever as a man, really she is. In fact, she’s absolutely cleverer than most. She’s cleverer than me. Oh, yes, she is. I confess it. I’m not conceited. Why, she does all my work for me—so there you are. It proves it, don’t it? Writes all my speeches for me. Really, you know, I am utterly useless without her. She guides me—absolutely guides me, she does. Why, alone I’m hopeless. How on earth do you suppose that I can get a young man out of the hands of the Rye press gang? They’re the most desperate of ruffians. The most desperate set of good-for-noughts that you could possibly wish to meet.”
The handle of the door turned suddenly, but Imogene’s foot was not easily shifted.
“There’s something in the way of the door, you clumsy clodhopper!” called the voice of Mrs. Whyllie from outside.
“I know there is, my love,” faltered the husband, and then to Imogene he said: “Oh, please let her come in. She will be quiet, I’m sure.” Then in a louder tone: “You will be quiet, won’t you, my love?”
“Antony,” called the voice of the spouse, “are you addressing yourself to that handsome girl? Are you calling her your love?” Then in a tone of doom: “Wait till I get in!”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, she’s misunderstanding me again. Don’t let her come in now, for heaven’s sake!” But Imogene had already opened the door and in had burst the little lady, and without heeding Imogene she rushed across the room and administered with her mittened hand a very resounding and sound box upon her husband’s ear.
“Now perhaps you will behave yourself like a respectable married man, like an old fogey that you are, like everything in fact that you ought to be, but aren’t and never will be! Will you behave yourself now, you truly terrible old man?”
“Certainly, my love,” meekly replied the lawyer, “but do look at this young lady.”
“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed when she did look at Imogene, “for if she hasn’t got a pistol in her hand, you’re no fool, Antony!”
“She has got a pistol in her hand, my love, and I’ll not only be a fool, but a dead fool, if you don’t find some way out of the difficulty.”
“And what is the difficulty, pray?” she asked, looking from her terrified husband to the extraordinary girl. “Oh, keep that pistol down, will you, my dear? for there is no immediate danger of my eating you. Just because I keep this fool of a husband of mine in his place, you mustn’t think me an utter virago.”
“I am afraid it is me that you will be thinking a virago,” answered the girl, still feigning fear in her voice, “but indeed I cannot help myself. This unpleasant situation has been forced upon me.”
But the old lady cut in again with: “I beseech you both to cease making melodramatic idiots of yourselves and tell me calmly and clearly what all this to-do is about. Now, Antony, speak up and tell me all about it. Come along, sir, make haste and tell me if you have any ideas left in that silly head of yours. No doubt you’ve been getting yourself into another pretty mess. Isn’t it enough for you that you go out, sir, a-driving and get robbed of your coach and cattle? I should really have thought that had been quite enough to keep you out of mischief for a day or two. But no! Here you are in trouble again. No doubt you have quite forgotten the little lecture I read to you upon that occasion?”
“No, my dear, I cannot forget it, I assure you. It is still very vivid to me, I promise you.” For indeed the little old man was still very conscious of a strange feeling of slippers whenever he chanced to sit down.
“Oh, yes, you have forgotten it,” went on the irrepressible lady. “You must have done so. Now tell me what on earth have you been doing to make this handsome girl behave in such a ridiculous fashion?”
With one hand still rubbing his boxed ear and with the other holding out to his wife the terrible letter, the lawyer explained as coherently as possible the whole situation. He told the facts in a timid voice, for he was greatly troubled as to how his wife would take it, but her manner was the most shocking surprise to him, it was so entirely different from anything he might have expected, for when she heard about the press gang, she clapped her little mittens together, and, laughing aloud, urged her husband to go
