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"Well, you might bring some with the soup," blandly replied her escort, who seemed to enjoy the Italian's excitement as a national eccentricity; "but hurry up and set the table, will you?" Secure, apparently, in his belief that his language was generally uncomprehended, Tournelli brought a decanter, and, setting it on the table, said, "Traitress!" in an intense whisper.
The lady's black eyes, without looking at Tournelli, glanced backward round the room, and slipped along our table, with half-defiant unconcern; and then she uttered a short hysterical laugh. "Ah! ze lady madame ze signora eh she wantah me?" continued Tournelli, leaning on the table with compressed fingers, and glaring at her. "Perhaps SHE wantah Tournelli eh?"
Tallant, who in this general embarrassment had been imperfectly served, and had eaten nothing, here felt his grievance reach its climax, and in a sudden outbreak of recklessness he roared out, "Hi, waiter you, Tournelli. He may," he added, turning darkly to us, "buy up enough stock to control the board and dismiss ME; but, by thunder, if it costs me my place, I'm going to have some more chicken!"
I trusted, with a desperate attempt at jocosity, that neither he nor Tournelli had been doing anything to require Manners's services in that way.
At least that was the explanation given by Hays, for the woman had fainted and been driven off to her hotel by the Quartermaster, and Tournelli had escaped. You didn't notice that lady, Tom, did you?" Tom came out of an abstracted study, and said: "No, she had her back to me all the time."
As Manners had volunteered no information of this, we felt that we could not without indelicacy ask him if Tom was a client, or a messenger from Tournelli. The only result was that our Club dinner was even more constrained than before.
Do you suppose I'm going to do anything to spoil a half-column of leaded brevier copy from an eye-witness, too? No; it's a square enough fight as it stands. We must look out for the woman, and not let Tournelli get an unfair drop on Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn't a bluff." But the Italian did not return.
Tournelli, no doubt disorganized by the unusual hurry, on his way to our table had dropped his tray, impartially distributed a plate of asparagus over an adjoining table, and, flushed and nervous, yet with an affectation of studied calmness, was pouring the sauce into the young Quartermaster's plate, in spite of his languid protests.
This is only skirmishing." "You hear," she continued to Tournelli in a perfectly even voice; "or shall it be a policeman, and a charge of stealing?" "Stealing!" gasped Tournelli. "YOU say stealing!" "Yes ten thousand dollars. You are well disguised here, my little fellow; it is a good business yours. Keep it while you can."
We instinctively looked there perhaps for Tournelli. There was no one. "Helloo!" said Manners suddenly. "There's Tom just come in. Call him!" Tom, evidently recalled from his brief furlough by the proprietor on account of the press of custom, had just made his appearance from the kitchen. "Tom, where's Tournelli?" asked the Lawyer hurriedly, but following the retreating woman with his eyes.
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