United States or China ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The apartment, which was on the third floor at the back of the house, was a combination of library, study, and smoke-room, and was the daily despair of the old housekeeper who, with the assistance of one servant, managed the house. It was a bachelor establishment, and had been left to Trayton Burleigh and James Fletcher by a distant connection of both men some ten years before.
That they mistook the situation was so evident to Nigel that one day he managed to confront Lord Hayman in the smoke-room and to have it out with him. "Congratulate you, I'm sure, congratulate you!" murmured that gentleman, whose practical brown eyes became suddenly wells full of ironical amazement. "Tell my wife at once. Knew nothing at all about it."
"Leave me alone, you black beggars!" "But, Sahib," began one of the Lascars, who spoke English. "Don't talk to me. I tell you, get out!" striking at their feet with his swollen hands. Warrington, who had not lain down at all, but who had wandered about the free decks like some lost soul from The Flying Dutchman, Warrington, hearing voices, came out of the smoke-room. A glance was sufficient.
He hurried on, and presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by the white roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients playing an odd game with long sticks and bits of wood not shuffleboard but something even lower in the mental scale.
Then he asked and received permission to retire to the smoke-room, for a pipe and a quiet half-hour, after having washed the dust and grime of battle from his hands and face. The major's Celtic nerves needed tobacco and reflection as they had rarely needed them. The Master, climbing up the ladder to the main gallery, left Leclair and a few off-duty men in the lower one.
There was a great lath of a fellow who kept the "Star and Garter" public-house. After all this lapse of time one hopes that one may not hit on any surviving prejudice against the use of names and places. His name was Tom Woolley, and I saw Pearce set his big hand underneath the chair on which he sat, and place him on an ordinary table in a smoke-room for some slight wager of a pint of beer or so.
"To a very curious fact, and the fact is this: The Colonel is not alone." I sat bolt upright. "What?" I cried. "Not so loud," warned Harley. "But, Harley " "My dear fellow, we must face facts. I repeat, the Colonel is not alone." "Why do you say so?" "Twice I have seen a shadow on the blind of the smoke-room." "His own shadow, probably." Again Paul Harley's cigarette glowed in the darkness.
"Billiards, or a whisky and soda in the smoke-room?" the latter asked. "I know that you are not a late bird." "Neither, thanks. Just a word with you here," Spencer answered. Duncombe paused on his way to the door. Spencer was standing in a reflective attitude, with his hands behind his back, gently balancing himself upon his toes.
If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them." On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, I should have kept to myself. "It doesn't do," said the little Englishman, "to try and beat a German down. They don't seem to understand it.
They would have an instant for a few disjointed words: Monny might perhaps have time to promise help which the girl dared not ask, even behind her husband's back. "Good evening," I said in French, taking advantage of a smoke-room acquaintance. "Is that smart boat down there for you? I was trying to secure it, in my best Arabic, but the fellow said it was engaged."
Word Of The Day