Under One Flag Part 47

"I must own that I think our President's carried the whole thing a little too far."

I sprang to my feet.

"I carried the whole thing a little too far!"

"One cannot but feel that some of your ideas are a little morbid."

"My ideas!"

To my surprise, and also to my indignation, a chorus of voices rose from round the table, all, actually, condemning me.

"Certainly!"

"Beyond all reason!"

"Show a disordered imagination!"

"Monstrous that we should have to submit to them!"

"If we'd had the faintest notion of what you proposed to do we should none of us ever have come."

"Gentlemen," I shouted, "I protest that my ideas have not been carried out."

"Not in their entirety," the man Finlayson had the audacity to retort.

"The notion that corpses should be scattered about the room, and that we should sit in coffins, and wear graveclothes, was a little--it really was a little, don't you think?"

"Mr Finlayson, do you dare to affirm that I--I--suggested that there should be corpses in the room, and coffins, and--and graveclothes? I have no hesitation in affirming that a more abominable insinuation I never heard."

The objectionable stranger to whom allusion has already been made rose from his chair.

"At last, Mr Short, I do agree with you. The business is an abominable one from beginning to end. As our President you have subjected us to a series of outrages against which it is our duty to protest in the most forcible manner."

"Hear! hear!" muttered someone. I do not know what ridiculous person it was.

"The most effective protest we can offer," continued the preposterous stranger, "is to at once leave the room. And that I for one shall instantly proceed to do. Those gentlemen who think with me will no doubt follow my example. You will be left to enjoy an orgie which a mentally, morally, and physically diseased imagination alone could have conceived."

Nearly every person present stood upon his feet. There were all sorts of exclamations.

"Hear! hear!"

"Bravo!"

"Excellently said!"

"Serve him right!"

One peculiarly offensive idiot observed,--

"Let him gorge himself upon his Death's Head Soup and his Cream of Undertakers!"

There was every symptom of a general stampede from the apartment. Just as the rush was beginning Gardiner's voice made itself audible above the din.

"Gentlemen, one moment, if you please. Am I to understand that the arrangements which have been made for you, as Members of the Thirteen Club, do not meet with your approval?"

"You are!"

"Then--they shall be changed!"

Precisely what took place I do not know. On a sudden the greenish coloured lights went out. The room was plunged into darkness. In the midst of the consequent confusion mysterious sounds were heard as of persons rushing hither and thither; of the swishing of draperies.

People cannoned against me when I moved. That we were about to be the victims of some final, stranger outrage I greatly feared. Perhaps those miscreants whom Gardiner had engaged as waiters were preparing to dip their hands deeper still in crime. I endeavoured to retain my presence of mind, prepared to play the man, though expectant of the worst.

All in an instant, while I was straining my eyes to see what was happening in the darkness, the gloom was gone, the room flashed into radiant brightness. Not lit this time by greenish globes, but by a hundred incandescent lamps which starred the ceiling. And when by degrees our dazzled gaze became accustomed to the unexpected illumination, we recognised that a transformation scene had taken place. There were no funereal hangings, but gaily-frescoed walls. No sombre-looking board, fantastically disfigured, but an inviting-looking table, covered with snow-white drapery, decked with glittering gla.s.s and flashing silver. No blood-red figures suggestive of the a.s.sistants of the Holy Office, but a dozen smiling waiters, immaculately clad. And at the table's head stood Gardiner, who, with outstretched hand, invited us to take our seats. "Gentlemen, the Inaugural Dinner of the Thirteen Club is at an end, and with it the Club. A dinner of another sort is ready to be served. I beg you will do me the honour of partaking of it as my guests."

III

Yes, George Gardiner and the man Finlayson had arranged it all between them. I am conscious that, in a fashion, they made of us their b.u.t.ts.

They had their little joke at our expense. But, in the end, the laugh was on our side. So we forgave them easily, at least I know I did. I never yet sat down to a better dinner than Gardiner had had prepared for us that night, nor one as good. No doubt the reaction, the surprise, the laughter, provided a piquant sauce. For when we realised that that monstrous menu had been but a ghastly joke, and that a banquet calculated to tempt the jaded palate of an Epicurus was awaiting the favour of our consumption, we enjoyed the joke as heartily as its perpetrator could have himself desired.

As I departed homeward I purchased from an urchin for a shilling his last copy of the night's paper, and found that those shares in which I was interested had been firm, when the Stock Exchange had closed, at an advance of one and a half. Most satisfactory, really. On the following day, when I paid Adeline my usual call, I learned that a lately-deceased aunt had left her quite a snug little legacy. Nothing could have been more agreeable from every point of view. The foolish child a.s.sured me that she knew she was going to be visited by a stroke of good fortune since, only two days before, she had found a money spider on the brim of her hat. While I congratulated the dear girl I laughed at her credulity, pointing out that it is only the ignorant who believe in omens. In the present age of enlightenment and progress educated men and women treat them, as of course, with that indifference they deserve. I went on to explain that as articles of faith such trivial superst.i.tions were only possible in the childhood of the world.

But whether or not she was in complete agreement with me I am not wholly sure.

THE END