* * * *
Tonight, however, the epoch of Puffin’s second big tumbler was not accompanied by harmonious developments. Major Benjy was determined to make the most of this unique opportunity of drinking his friend’s whisky, and whether Puffin put the bottle on the further side of him, or under his chair, or under the table, he came padding round in his slippers and standing near the ambush while he tried to interest his friend in tales of love or tiger-shooting so as to distract his attention. When he mistakenly thought he had done so, he hastily refilled his glass, taking unusually stiff doses for fear of not getting another opportunity, and altogether omitting to ask Puffin’s leave for these maraudings. When this had happened four or five times, Puffin, acting on the instinct of the polar bear who eats her babies for fear that anybody else should get them, surreptitiously poured the rest of his bottle into his glass, and filled it up to the top with hot water, making a mixture of extraordinary power.
Soon after this Major Flint came rambling round the table again. He was not sure whether Puffin had put the bottle by his chair or behind the coal-scuttle, and was quite ignorant of the fact that wherever it was, it was empty. Amorous reminiscences tonight had been the accompaniment to Puffin’s second tumbler.
“Devilish fine woman she was,” he said, “and that was the last that Benjamin Flint ever saw of her. She went up to the hills next morning—”
“But the last you saw of her just now was on the deck of the P. and O. at Bombay,” objected Puffin. “Or did she go up to the hills on the deck of the P. and O.? Wonderful line!”
“No, sir,” said Benjamin Flint, “that was Helen, la belle Hélène. It was la belle Hélène whom I saw off at the Apollo Bunder. I don’t know if I told you— By Gad, I’ve kicked the bottle over. No idea you’d put it there. Hope the cork’s in.”
“No harm if it isn’t,” said Puffin, beginning on his third most fiery glass. The strength of it rather astonished him.
“You don’t mean to say it’s empty?” asked Major Flint. “Why just now there was close on a quarter of a bottle left.”
“As much as that?” asked Puffin. “Glad to hear it.”
“Not a drop less. You don’t mean to say— Well, if you can drink that and can say hippopotamus afterwards, I should put that among your challenges, to men of four hundred and two: I should say forty-two. It’s a fine thing to have a strong head, though if I drank what you’ve got in your glass, I should be tipsy, sir.”
Puffin laughed in his irritating falsetto manner.
“Good thing that it’s in my glass then, and not your glass,” he said. “And lemme tell you, Major, in case you don’t know it, that when I’ve drunk every drop of this and sucked the lemon, you’ll have had far more out of my bottle this evening than I have. My usual twice and—and my usual night-cap, as you say, is what’s my ration, and I’ve had no more than my ration. Eight Bells.”
“And a pretty good ration you’ve got there,” said the baffled Major. “Without your usual twice.”
Puffin was beginning to be aware of that as he swallowed the fiery mixture, but nothing in the world would now have prevented his drinking every single drop of it. It was clear to him, among so much that was dim owing to the wood-smoke, that the Major would miss a good many drives tomorrow morning.
“And whose whisky is it?” he said, gulping down the fiery stuff.
“I know whose it’s going to be,” said the other.
“And I know whose it is now,” retorted Puffin, “and I know whose whisky it is that’s filled you up ti’ as a drum. Tight as a drum,” he repeated very carefully.
Major Flint was conscious of an unusual activity of brain, and, when he spoke, of a sort of congestion and entanglement of words. It pleased him to think that he had drunk so much of somebody’s else whisky, but he felt that he ought to be angry.
“That’s a very unmentionable sor’ of thing to say,” he remarked. “An’ if it wasn’t for the sacred claims of hospitality, I’d make you explain just what you mean by that, and make you eat your words. Pologize, in fact.”
Puffin finished his glass at a gulp, and rose to his feet.
“Pologies be blowed,” he said. “Hittopopamus!”
“And were you addressing that to me?” asked Major Flint with deadly calm.
“Of course, I was. Hippot— same animal as before. Pleasant old boy. And as for the lemon you lent me, well, I don’t want it any more. Have a suck at it, ole fellow! I don’t want it any more.”
The Major turned purple in the face, made a course for the door like a knight’s move at chess (a long step in one direction and a short one at right angles to the first) and opened it. The door thus served as an aperture from the room and a support to himself. He spoke no word of any sort or kind: his silence spoke for him in a far more dignified manner than he could have managed for himself.
Captain Puffin stood for a moment wreathed in smiles, and fingering the slice of lemon, which he had meant playfully to throw at his friend. But his smile faded, and by some sort of telepathic perception he realized how much more decorous it was to say (or, better, to indicate) good-night in a dignified manner than to throw lemons about. He walked in dots and dashes like a Morse code out of the room, bestowing a naval salute on the Major as he passed. The latter returned it with a military salute and a suppressed hiccup. Not a word passed.
Then Captain Puffin found his hat and coat without much difficulty, and marched out of the house, slamming the door behind him with a bang that echoed down the street and made Miss Mapp dream about a thunderstorm. He let himself into his own house, and bent down before his expired fire, which he tried to blow into life again. This was unsuccessful, and he breathed in a quantity of wood-ash.
He sat down by his table and began to think things out. He told himself that he was not drunk at all, but that he had taken an unusual quantity of whisky, which seemed to produce much the same effect as intoxication. Allowing for that, he was conscious that he was extremely angry about something, and had a firm idea that the Major was very angry too.
“But woz’it all been about?” he vainly asked himself.“Woz’it all been about?”
He was roused from his puzzling over this unanswerable conundrum by the clink of the flap in his letter-box. Either this was the first post in the morning, in which case it was much later than he thought, and wonderfully dark still, or it was the last post at night, in which case it was much earlier than he thought. But, whichever it was, a letter had been slipped into his box, and he brought it in. The gum on the envelope was still wet, which saved trouble in opening it. Inside was a half sheet containing but a few words. This curt epistle ran as follows:
“Sir,
“My seconds will wait on you in the course of tomorrow morning.
“Your faithful obedient servant,
“Benjamin Flint.
Captain Puffin.”
Puffin felt as calm as a tropic night, and as courageous as a captain. Somewhere below his courage and his calm was an appalling sense of misgiving. That he successfully stifled.
“Very proper,” he said aloud. “Qui’ proper. Insults. Blood. Seconds won’t have to wait a second. Better get a good sleep.”
He went up to his room, fell on to his bed and instantly began to snore.
* * * *
It