The Disentanglers

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Lang Andrew. The Disentanglers

PREFACE

I. THE GREAT IDEA

II. FROM THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES

III. ADVENTURE OF THE FIRST CLIENTS

IV. ADVENTURE OF THE RICH UNCLE

V. THE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICE SCREEN

VI. A LOVER IN COCKY

VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE EXEMPLARY EARL

I. The Earl’s Long-Lost Cousin

II. The Affair of the Jesuit

VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LADY PATRONESS

IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST

X. ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN

I. The Prize of a Lady’s Hand

II. The Adventure of the Muddy Pearls

XI. ADVENTURE OF THE MISERLY MARQUIS

I. The Marquis consults Gray and Graham

II. The Emu’s Feathers

III. A Romance of Bradshaw

IV. Greek meets Greek

XII. ADVENTURE OF THE CANADIAN HEIRESS

I. At Castle Skrae

II. Lost

III. Logan to the Rescue!

IV. The Adventure of Eachain of the Hairy Arm

V. The Adventure of the Flora Macdonald

Отрывок из книги

The scene was a dusky shabby little room in Ryder Street. To such caves many repair whose days are passed, and whose food is consumed, in the clubs of the adjacent thoroughfare of cooperative palaces, Pall Mall. The furniture was battered and dingy; the sofa on which Logan sprawled had a certain historic interest: it was covered with cloth of horsehair, now seldom found by the amateur. A bookcase with glass doors held a crowd of books to which the amateur would at once have flown. They were in ‘boards’ of faded blue, and the paper labels bore alluring names: they were all First Editions of the most desirable kind. The bottles in the liqueur case were antique; a coat of arms, not undistinguished, was in relief on the silver stoppers. But the liquors in the flasks were humble and conventional. Merton, the tenant of the rooms, was in a Zingari cricketing coat; he occupied the arm-chair, while Logan, in evening dress, maintained a difficult equilibrium on the slippery sofa. Both men were of an age between twenty-five and twenty-nine, both were pleasant to the eye. Merton was, if anything, under the middle height: fair, slim, and active. As a freshman he had coxed his College Eight, later he rowed Bow in that vessel. He had won the Hurdles, but been beaten by his Cambridge opponent; he had taken a fair second in Greats, was believed to have been ‘runner up’ for the Newdigate prize poem, and might have won other laurels, but that he was found to do the female parts very fairly in the dramatic performances of the University, a thing irreconcilable with study. His father was a rural dean. Merton’s most obvious vice was a thirst for general information. ‘I know it is awfully bad form to know anything,’ he had been heard to say, ‘but everyone has his failings, and mine is occasionally useful.’

Logan was tall, dark, athletic and indolent. He was, in a way, the last of an historic Scottish family, and rather fond of discoursing on the ancestral traditions. But any satisfaction that he derived from them was, so far, all that his birth had won for him. His little patrimony had taken to itself wings. Merton was in no better case. Both, as they sat together, were gloomily discussing their prospects.

.....

‘You must part with them,’ said Merton. ‘We are like Palissy the potter, feeding his furnace with the drawing-room furniture.’

‘But how about the recruiting?’ Logan asked. ‘It’s like one of these novels where you begin by collecting desperados from all quarters, and then the shooting commences.’

.....