Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/124

driven therefore to the edge of a lonely lane, and indirectly to taking liberties with your summerhouse in order to arrange our . . .”

“Stop!” roared the little man in the butterfly necktie. “Put me out of my intellectual misery. Are you really the two tomfools I have read of in all the papers? Are you the two people who wanted to spit each other in the Police Court? Are you? Are you?”

“Yes,” said MacIan, “it began in a Police Court.”

The little man slung the bottle of wine twenty yards away like a stone.

“Come up to my place,” he said. “I’ve got better stuff than that. I’ve got the best Beaune within fifty miles of here. Come up. You’re the very men I wanted to see.”

Even Turnbull, with his typical invulnerability, was a little taken aback by this boisterous and almost brutal hospitality.

“Why . . . sir . . .” he began.

“Come up! Come in!” howled the little man, dancing with delight. “I’ll give you a dinner. I’ll give you a bed! I’ll give you a green smooth lawn and your choice of swords and pistols. Why, you fools, I adore fighting! It’s the only