Upsidonia Part 2

"I don't know that I should altogether object to that," I said, and took the wine list from him.

It was an excellent list, and under the circ.u.mstances I made excellent use of it. I allowed myself a gla.s.s of white Tokay, and another of Chateau d'Yquem, a pint of Pommery, 1900, and a bottle of '68 port to sit with later on. He looked more contemptuous than ever as he took the order, and asked disdainfully: "Don't you want a liqueur with your coffee?"

"I had forgotten that for the moment," I said. "Have you any very old brandy?"

"We have some eighteen-fifteen," he said; "but I need scarcely say we are very seldom asked for it."

"Well, on the terms that you have indicated, you are asked for it now,"

I said. "And I should like one or two really good cigars, fairly strong--something like the one that Mr. Perry was smoking this afternoon, if you can get them."

He went out of the room without a word, and carefully locked the outer door behind him. However inexplicable my treatment, I was not, at any rate, to forget that I was a prisoner.

Tired with my long walk, and the somewhat disturbing experiences I had been through, I fell fast asleep in the easy chair by the open window, through which came sweet wafts from a patch of night-scented stock in the garden outside.

I only awoke when the waiter brought in the first course of my dinner.

He had laid the table without disturbing me, and had put a vase of roses in the middle and four tall candles at the corners, with rose-coloured shades.

"I'm sorry I haven't brought my evening clothes," I said, as I took my seat.

He made no reply to this pleasantry, and his air of high superiority began to annoy me.

"Do you generally wait upon prisoners in this way?" I asked him, when he brought in the fish.

"We do in the case of prisoners who look like gentlemen and behave like pigs," was his surprising reply, which I turned over in my mind before I said: "This seems a topsy-turvy place altogether, but I should really like to know how I have behaved like a pig."

"You can wallow in your hoggishness as much as you like," he said acidly, "but if you have the impudence to address any more remarks to me, I'll punch your head for you."

I looked round at him, standing attentively behind my chair. He was a frail man, and looked hungry.

"You might find that two could play at that game," I said, with my eye on him; and he flushed, but did not flinch.

"Is that a threat?" he asked. "Because if it is----;" and he turned as if to leave the room.

As I didn't know what, in the general reversal of things, might be the punishment here for threatening to retaliate on a waiter who proposed to punch one's head, and I wanted to finish my dinner, I said: "If you're disinclined for conversation you can have your own way."

We went through the rest of the _menu_ in silence, I enjoying the good things provided for me, and he serving me with the readiest attention to the matter in hand. We did not address another word to each other until he had carefully poured out from its basket-cradle a gla.s.s of the wonderful port.

I sipped it, and thought it just in the very least touched, and told him so. He took the gla.s.s, sniffed at the wine, and tasted it. "It's absolutely right," he said, "but of course you can have another bottle if you like."

"Thank you," I said, and began to wonder, rather uneasily, as he was away fetching it, if in some way I was not to pay pretty dearly for the remarkable treatment I was undergoing.

The second bottle of port was beyond criticism. When I had expressed my approval, the waiter put it on a little table by the side of the extremely easy chair, and indicated, but without saying so, that he wished to clear away. This he did, in complete silence; but before he finally left the room came over to where I was standing, and, holding out half a sovereign, said, still with the same inflection of contempt: "That's for yourself."

I took the coin in my hand, and said, somewhat after the manner of a cabman who has been offered twopence for a _pour boire_: "What do you call this?"

He flushed again, took it back, gave me half a crown instead, and then left the room.

My evening in prison had so far brought me a dinner such as I seldom enjoyed, and five s.h.i.+llings in money. Why, but for my last question, it would have brought me seven and sixpence more, I was quite unable to imagine.

CHAPTER III

The cigars provided for me, if not of the exact brand as those smoked by Mr. Perry, were very good, and I had been enjoying one of them for some little time when I heard the outside door again being unlocked.

"Now," I thought, "I may get some explanation of this extraordinary state of affairs, and may possibly find myself wis.h.i.+ng that my entertainment had not cost the ratepayers of this town quite so much money."

But I was in a state of such complete bodily satisfaction that I did not much care what should happen, and sat still until the door of my room was opened and a young man dressed in evening clothes came in.

He seemed to be under the influence of some agitation, and as the reek of my cigar met his nostrils, and his eyes fell upon my bottle of port resting in its cradle, his jaw dropped.

He raised his eyes to mine, and said: "I have come to make an appeal to you, sir."

"Well, sit down and make it," I said, indicating a chair. "Will you have a gla.s.s of wine--I can recommend it--or a cigar?"

He looked at me sternly. "I have brought myself to come and ask a favour of you," he said. "You look like a gentleman; you can at least try to behave as such."

I was in that comfortable state in which the idiosyncrasies of other people occasion one more amus.e.m.e.nt than surprise. I was also a little inclined to loquacity. I smiled at him.

"I don't pretend to understand you," I said; "but I am glad you think I look like a gentleman. I am one. My great-grandfather ruined himself at Crockford's, and although one of my great-uncles set up a shop, he never sold anything, and died poor. I am poor myself, but none the less deserving."

His face brightened a little. "I _thought_ you were a gentleman," he said, "in spite of your behaviour. So am I, and of course my father too, although you might not think it from our appearance. Possibly you are engaged in the same good work as we are."

"I am not engaged in any good work at present," I said, "except that of making myself as comfortable as circ.u.mstances will permit. As for you, I think you look very gentlemanlike; I don't think I have had the pleasure of meeting your father."

"He is Mr. Perry," he said, "who tried his utmost to save you from the results of your jest--I don't believe it meant more than that--with Lord Potter. As far as my father was concerned it was an unfortunate jest; and I might say the same as far as you are concerned, to judge from your present serious situation. In spite of his n.o.ble and self-sacrificing life, my father is misunderstood by a good many people; and Lord Potter, for one, would like to see his career of usefulness stopped. Now he has a handle against him. He is to be called as a witness when you come up before the magistrate to-morrow morning; and it rests with you whether that kind and good old man, whose life is a lesson to us all, shall be arrested himself and suffer the disgrace of a criminal trial. Surely you cannot be so lost to all sense of grat.i.tude as to bring that about!"

I did not know in the least what he was talking about. His ideas seemed to be as topsy-turvy as those of the rest of the people I had so far met in this curious place. But I was in too lazy a mood to make much effort to get at the bottom of all that was puzzling me.

"I should hate to get your father into trouble," I said. "I don't understand why a prosperous-looking elderly gentleman should pinch my watch and demand all my cash; but I dare say he did it all for the best, and as he didn't get anything, I am prepared to be lenient with him.

I'll do what I can."

He thanked me profusely. "You have only to stand on your dignity and refuse to answer questions, and they can prove nothing against him," he said.

"All right! Anything to oblige. You might tell me what all this means, though; and to begin with, what town this is; for I haven't the slightest idea where I am."

At this quite ordinary question, he seemed to be even more puzzled than I was. "I can't understand you," he said, and it was plain by the expression on his face that he spoke the truth. "Where do you come from?"

"I come from a little place called London," I said. "I don't know whether you have ever heard of it."

"No, never," he replied. "What part of the country is it in?"

"Do you ever happen to have heard of England?" I asked; and again he said: "No, never."

"Well, what country are we in now?" I asked, willing to humour him.

"Why, in Upsidonia, of course."