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Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down with a bottle of
Heidsieck's dry monopole. As for the artist, he was far too uneasy to
eat, and his companion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne
unless he did.
'One of us must stay sober,' remarked the lawyer, 'and I won't give you
champagne on the strength of a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious,' he
added confidentially. 'One drunken man, excellent business--two drunken
men, all my eye.'
On the production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might
have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien.
He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and
addressed him thickly but severely.
'Enough of this fooling,' was his not inappropriate exordium. 'To
business. Mark me closely. I am an Australian. My name is John Dickson,
though you mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You will be
relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can't go into this
sort of thing too thoroughly, Pitman; the whole secret is preparation,
and I can get up my biography from the beginning, and I could tell it
you now, only I have forgotten it.'
'
Perhaps I'm stupid--' began Pitman.
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