said Brian, rousing himself out of a fit of abstraction, “especially when one has such charming visitors.”
Madge laughed at this, and made a little grimace.
“If your tea is only equal to your compliments,” she said lightly, “I’m sure papa will forgive us for dragging him away from his club.”
“Papa will forgive anything,” murmured Mr. Frettlby, tilting his hat over his eyes, “so long as he gets somewhere out of the sun. I can’t say I care about playing the parts of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace of a Melbourne hot day.”
“There now, papa is quite a host in himself,” said Madge mischievously, as, the carriage drew up at Mrs. Sampson’s door.
“No, you are wrong,” said Brian, as he alighted and helped her out; “I am the host in myself this time.”
“If there is one thing I hate above another,” observed Miss Frettlby, calmly, “it’s a pun, and especially a bad one.”
Mrs. Sampson was very much astonished at the early arrival of her lodger’s guests, and did not hesitate to express her astonishment.
“Bein’ taken by surprise,” she said, with an apologetic cackle, “it ain’t to be suppose as miraculs can be performed with regard to cookin’, the fire havin’ gone out, not bein’ kept alight on account of the ‘eat of the day, which was that ‘ot as never was, tho’, to be sure, bein’ a child in the early days, I remember it were that ‘ot as my sister’s aunt was in the ‘abit of roastin’ her jints in the sun.”
After telling this last romance, and leaving her visitors in doubt whether the joints referred to belonged to an animal or to her sister’s aunt or to herself, Mrs. Sampson crackled away downstairs to get things ready.
“What a curious thing that landlady of yours is, Brian,” said Madge, from the depths of a huge arm-chair. “I believe she’s a grasshopper from the Fitzroy Gardens.”
“Oh, no, she’s a woman,” said Mr. Frettlby, cynically. “You can tell that by the length of her tongue.”
“A popular error, papa,” retorted Madge, sharply. “I know plenty of men who talk far more than any woman.”
“I hope I’ll never meet them, then,” said Mr. Frettlby, “for if I did I should be inclined to agree with De Quincey on murder as a fine art.”
Brian winced at this, and looked apprehensively at Madge, and saw with relief that she was not paying attention to her father, but was listening intently.
“There she is,” as a faint rustle at the door announced the arrival of Mrs. Sampson and the tea-tray. “I wonder, Brian, you don’t think the house is on fire with that queer noise always going on—she wants oil!”
“Yes, St. Jacob’s oil,” laughed Brian, as Mrs. Sampson entered, and placed her burden on the table.
“Not ‘avin’ any cake,” said that lady, “thro’ not being forewarned as to the time of arrival—tho’ it’s not ofting I’m taken by surprise—except as to a ‘eadache, which, of course, is accidental to every pusson—I ain’t got nothin’ but bread and butter, the baker and grocer both bein’ all that could be desired, except in the way of worryin’ for their money, which they thinks as ‘ow I keeps the bank in the ‘ouse, like Allading’s cave, as I’ve ‘eard tell in the Arabian Nights, me ‘avin’ gained it as a prize for English in my early girl’ood, bein’ then considered a scholard an’ industrus.”
Mrs. Sampson’s shrill apologies for the absence of cake having been received, she hopped out of the room, and Madge made the tea. The service was a quaint Chinese one, which Brian had picked up in his wanderings. He used it only on special occasions. As he watched Madge he could not help thinking how pretty she looked, with her hands moving deftly among the cups and saucers, so bizarre-looking with their sprawling dragons of yellow and green. He half smiled to himself as he thought, “If they knew all, I wonder if they would sit with me so unconcernedly.”
Mr. Frettlby, too, as he looked at his daughter, thought of his dead wife and sighed.
“Well,” said Madge, as she handed them their tea, and helped herself to some thin bread and butter, “you two gentlemen are most delightful company—papa is sighing like a furnace, and Brian is staring at me with his eyes like blue china saucers. You ought both to be turned forth to funerals like melancholy.”
“Why like melancholy?” queried Brian, lazily.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said the young lady with a smile in her pretty black eyes, “that you are not a student of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
“Very likely not,” answered Brian; “midsummer out here is so hot that one gets no sleep, and, consequently no dreams. Depend upon it, if the four lovers whom Puck treated so badly had lived in Australia they wouldn’t have been able to sleep for the mosquitoes.”
“What nonsense you two young people do talk,” said Mr. Frettlby, with an amused smile, as he stirred his tea.
“Dulce est desipere in loco,” observed Brian, gravely, “a man who can’t carry out that observation is sure not to be up to much.”
“I don’t like Latin,” said Miss Frettlby, shaking her pretty head. “I agree with Heine’s remark, that if the Romans had been forced to learn it they would not have found time to conquer the world.”
“Which was a much more agreeable task,” said Brian.
“And more profitable,” finished Mr. Frettlby.
They chattered in this desultory fashion for a considerable time, till at last Madge rose and said they must go.
Brian proposed to dine with them at St. Kilda, and then they would all go to Brock’s Fireworks. Madge consented to this, and she was just pulling on her gloves when suddenly they heard a ring at the front door, and presently Mrs. Sampson talking in an excited manner at the pitch of her voice.
“You shan’t come in, I tell you,” they heard her say shrilly, “so it’s no good trying, which I’ve allays ‘eard as an Englishman’s ‘ouse is ‘is castle, an’ you’re a-breakin’ the law, as well as a-spilin’ the carpets, which ‘as bin newly put down.”
Some one made a reply; then the door of Brian’s room was thrown open, and Gorby walked in, followed by another man. Fitzgerald turned as white as a sheet, for he felt instinctively that they had come for him. However, pulling himself together, he demanded, in a haughty tone, the reason of the intrusion.
Mr. Gorby walked straight over to where Brian was standing, and placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“Brian Fitzgerald,” he said, in a clear voice, “I arrest you in the Queen’s name.”
“For what?” asked Brian, steadily.
“The murder of Oliver Whyte.”
At this Madge gave a cry.
“It is not true!” she said, wildly. “My
