"Well. I'm
game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
began at the third page of "M. de C."
"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
conscription_.'
"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
half-drunk.
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