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Riddell's motion being seconded and carried, Mr Isaacs, a pallid unintelligent- looking Limpet, rose and advanced to the chair at the end of the table usually occupied by the Chairman of Committees, and, knocking with a hammer once or twice, demanded silence. This being secured, he called out, "Mr Fairbairn!" and sat down. Fairbairn's speech was brief and to the point.
What has it got to do with my going to " What strange fatality was there about Riddell's study-door that it always opened at the most inopportune times? Just as Wyndham began to speak it opened again, and Bloomfield, of all persons, appeared. "I want to speak to you, Riddell," he said.
I believe it was on this very evening that I heard Sala utter one of those jocosely brutal sentences for which he was celebrated. The literary men who frequented Mrs. Riddell's house were not, I am sorry to say, so respectful to her husband as they might have been.
"I told you to go to Bloomfield," said Game, growing hot. "Bloomfield's not the captain," retorted Telson, beginning to enjoy himself. "Riddell's captain." "You were fighting in the `Big," said Game, looking uneasily at Riddell while he spoke. "I know I was. Riddell's potted me for it, haven't you, Riddell?" "I've given Telson fifty lines, and stopped his play two days," said Riddell, quietly.
All he knew was that when he went in to look after Riddell's tea that afternoon, it was lying there on the table. He couldn't say how long it had been there. He hadn't been in the room since dinner, nor had Riddell.
He had scarcely the spirit to return Riddell's salute as he seated himself beside him on the bench and waited for what was to come. "Old fellow," said Riddell, "don't look so wretched. Things mayn't be so bad as you think." "How could they be anything else?" said Wyndham, dolefully. "If you'll listen to me, and not look so frightfully down," said the captain, "I'll tell you."
He had come fresh from Riddell's study an hour ago. His brother's friend had been as kind as ever. In a hundred ways he had shown it without sermon or lecture, and Wyndham had felt stung with a sense of his own ingratitude and dishonesty as he accepted the help and goodness of his mentor. Now, consequently, this summons to present himself before Silk was more than usually distasteful.
Riddell's idea of looking after a rickety youngster included a good deal more than this, and from the moment the old captain had left, amid all his own tribulations and adversities, the thought of young Wyndham had saddled itself on Riddell's conscience with an uncomfortable weight.
The solitary influences of nature, when habitually contemplated in her more wild and solemn aspects, seem calculated to mould minds of good natural capabilities, but which are shut out from the social acquisition of knowledge, into forms like that of David Riddell's.
Riddell's colour changed as he read and re-read and re-read again these few lines of idiotic jargon. He lay down the book half a dozen times, and as often took it up again, and scrutinised the entry, and as he did so quick looks of perplexity, or joy, or shame, even of humour, chased one another across his face. The truth with all its new meaning slowly dawned upon him.
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