“I am a smoker; but I don’t accept anything from you.” Chelsfield took his son’s hand and tried to pull him from his place. “I want to speak to you, dear boy. I’ve something important to say.” “You said something important to me once,” retorted the other doggedly, “and you don’t have a chance of saying anything important to me again. Be off, before I set the others on to you.” His attitude expressed determination. Chelsfield’s housekeeper, at breakfast the next morning, asked in her respectful manner what he thought of the comedy he had seen the previous night. Chelsfield told her that he considered it extremely far-fetched. XI—SCOTTER’S LUCK HIS opponent, after a good look at the table, adjusted his cue, and, disregarding the murmur of “Whitechapel!” sent spot white into a pocket. Many of the spectators volunteered advice, the while Scotter stood back and glanced self-commiseratingly at the scoring-board. “That all I am, marker?” he inquired. “That’s your total figure, my lad.” Scatter’s opponent took time in aiming at the red, and the suggestion that he had gone to sleep did not induce him to hurry. Striking his own ball gently and rather high up, the two travelled slowly into baulk. Scotter remarked dismally that this was just his luck, and found spot white; he was about to make a wild shot up and down the table when he changed his mind, and, considering angles, drew back his cue and prepared to send his ball at a particular point of the cushion. “This ought to do it,” he said, “but whether it will or not is more than I can—” A bell rang. On the instant the men were out of the billiard-room; Scotter the last, because his first neat and orderly idea was to replace his cue in the stand, the second, a time-saving notion, was to leave it resting against the table, and in this confusion of thought a few moments were wasted. As the two horses plunged and reared in the yard, and made a dash through the short avenue of people outside the gates, one or two of his helmeted colleagues expressed the opinion that when the last trump sounded Scotter would be the last to respond, bringing with him an assortment of about ten good and sufficient excuses. Above the clanging and the noise, he was asked whether he had ever been really in time for anything but his meals; he blushed when they declared that girls were probably waiting for him at altars in various churches of London, growing old and cross and tired. “Where are we bound for?” he asked, to change the subject. “We’re going to a fire, Scotty, my lad,” it was explained. “Didn’t you know? You thought we were off to an evening party, to have a game of postman’s knock. But no; we’re going to a fire, and we’ve got to put it out soon as we possibly can. Remember that, won’t you? Not to make it burn brighter, but to put it out. It’s done with the aid of a syphon of soda. You take the syphon like this, and you remark to the fire, ‘Say when!’ and then—”