Parker seemed in a particularly
despondent frame of mind. He needed pressing even to come to supper.
"You were quick-witted, Walmsley," he admitted as we rolled away in the
car, "quick-witted, I'll admit that; but you were dead clumsy with your
fingers! I could see what you were doing from the back of my head."
"Really!" I murmured. "Well, I suppose that sort of thing is a gift. I
only know that I hope I may never have to do it again."
Mr. Parker sighed.
"I fear," he said, "that your troubles with us will soon be over. Eve has
been telling me about that young idiot of an Englishman who visited the
Bundercombes out in Okata. If there was one man whose name I thought I was
safe to make use of it was Joe Bundercombe!"
"It seems," I admitted, "to have been an unfortunate choice. What do you
think of doing about it?"
Mr. Parker apparently had no immediate answer ready for me. During our
brief ride in the motor and in the early stages of supper he was afflicted
by a taciturnity that made him almost negligible as a companion. And then
suddenly a light broke over his face. He had the appearance of a
shipwrecked mariner who suddenly catches sight of land in the offing. His
lips were a little parted, his boyish face all aglow.
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