He came too late. All alone. The collar
of his tunic strangled him. He stuffed his fingers underneath, and
wrenched; then as he came and went, catching sight in a mirror, was
shocked to see that, in Biblical fashion, he had rent his garments.
"This is bad," he thought, staring. "It is the heat. I must not stay
alone."
He shouted, clapped his hands for a servant, and at last, snatching a
coat from his unruffled boy, hurried away through stillness and
moonlight to the detested club. On the stairs a song greeted him,--a
fragment with more breath than melody, in a raw bass:--
"Jolly boating weather,
And a hay harvest breeze!"
"Shut up!" snarled another voice. "Good God, man!"
The loft was like a cave heated by subterranean fires. Two long punkahs
flapped languidly in the darkness, with a whine of pulleys. Under a
swinging lamp, in a pool of light and heat, four men sat playing cards,
their tousled heads, bare arms, and cinglets torn open across the chest,
giving them the air of desperadoes.
"Jolly boating weather," wheezed the fat Sturgeon. He stood apart in
shadow, swaying on his feet.
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