The Just Men of Cordova quotes

Manfred stroked his little beard, with the same grave thoughtful expression in his wise eyes as when he had watched Gonsalez shuffling from the Café de la Gran Capitan.

“Life would be dull without Poiccart,” he said.

“Dull, indeed—ah, señor, my life shall be your praise, and it shall rise like the smoke of holy incense to the throne of Heaven.”

He strode up and down the apartment thoughtfully, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

“It is a hard country, England,” he said, “for men who have had the misfortune to dabble in finance.”

“In our business, sergeant,” the aggrieved colonel went on, “it frequently happens that disappointed people—people who have not made the profits which they anticipated—bring extraordinary accusations against those responsible for the conduct of those concerns in which their money is invested.

“Rather a curious hour for an appointment,” he said.

“Ours is a curious business,” replied Colonel Black.

They rose, and Sir Isaac turned to Black.

His absorbed gaze took in the baronet from head to foot.

“Fifty thousand pounds!” he said facetiously. “My dear Ikey, you’re worth much more murdered than alive.”

“Don’t make those rotten jokes,” he said, and finished his brandy at a gulp.

“No,” snarled the earl,

“I am sitting on the top of Mont Blanc eating rice pudding.”

There was no retort to this.

When you have had as much racing as I have had, and won as much money as I have won, you’ll take no notice of what owners think of their horses.

You might as well ask a mother to give a candid opinion of her own daughter’s charms as to ask an owner for unbiased information about his own horse.

”

“I still think Nemesis will win,” he went on, “but I am not so confident as I was.

The most cocksure of students gets a little glum in the face of the examiner.

”

The man looked at her sorrowfully.

“You’ve had your chance, miss,” he said ominously. “Black’s Essley, that’s all!”

With this parting shot he shuffled through the hall, down the steps into the night.

Black did not lose his nerve. He went to a drawer in the desk of his outer office and took out a Browning pistol. It was loaded. He balanced it in his right hand, looked at it reflectively, then put it back again.

He hated firearms; they made a great deal of unnecessary noise, and they left behind them too sure an indication of the identity of their user.

Men have been traced by bullets.

“No, you goose,” he chuckled, “in his dressing-gown.”

She followed him down the corridor.

“You’ve learnt that from Lord Verlond,” she said reproachfully.

“You’ve learnt that from Lord Verlond,” she said reproachfully.

She waited till the car had carried her father from view, then walked back to her room, happy with the happiness which anticipates happiness.

The night before had been a miserable one till, acting on an impulse, she had humbled herself, and found strange joy in the humiliation.

He did not remove his cigar, seemed perfectly at ease, even going so far as to cast an eye upon a chair, inviting invitation.

“Essley or Black,” he said steadily, “your day is already dusk, and the night is very near.”

A cold wave of terror swept over the colonel. He tried to speak, but his throat and his mouth were dry, and he could only make inarticulate noises.

It was a pity that in a minute or so one should be dead and the other broken. She so full of life, so splendid of shape, so fresh and lovely. He turned his head and looked at her.

Curious, very curious, how frail a thing is life, that a milligram of a colourless fluid should be sufficient to snap the cord that binds soul to body.

The waiter filled the glasses—first the girl’s, then his.