Here Comes a Chopper Read Online Free PDF Page B

of course—that
he
wasn’t superstitious but that so many people
were
that he would go without his dinner rather than occasion alarm and despondency. All that sort of thing. He was rather eloquent in an ineffective, poetic sort of way. Besides, he thinks Lingfield is dead. It was Lingfield who made the thirteenth.’
    ‘He doesn’t
look
superstitious.’
    ‘Do you think one can tell a thing like that merely from looking at people?’
    ‘Yes, I do.’
    ‘Of course, you’re young.’ He smiled. His short moustache lifted at the corners of his firm mouth and his eyes were kind.
    ‘Oh!’ said Dorothy, annoyed. He laughed.
    ‘Mrs Bradley, next to Hackhurst, doesn’t care a hoot.
She
says that superstition is impious, redundant, unintelligent but important.’
    Dorothy gazed at Mrs Bradley, and considered not only the remarkable woman herself but her equally remarkable adjectives. She then glanced at the captain and wondered how it was that his memory had retained, apparently without effort, the bulk of Mrs Bradley’s remarks. He did not look particularly intelligent, and, up to that point, had not sounded it.
TABLE I
    L ADY C ATHERINE L EITH
G EORGE M ERROW
J OHN H ACKHURST
C LAUDIA D ENBIES
M RS B RADLEY
G ARETH C LANDON
R OGER H OSKYN
M ARJORIE C LANDON
C LARE D UNLEY
M ARY L EITH
H UMPHREY B OOKHAM
D OROTHY W OODCOTE
E UNICE P IGDON
    C APTAIN R ANMORE
    The Dinner Party given for George Merrow on his thirteenth birthday, at Whiteledge, in the County of Surrey, on Maundy Thursday, March 29th. Fourteen persons at table.
    ‘To continue our tour of the table,’ continued the captain, who seemed determined to monopolize the conversation, ‘your friend Mr Hoskyn—I think he was introduced as Hoskyn?—does not enter into our calculations, since his is the position of
deus ex machina
. Clare Dunley, whom you may or may not know as the archaeologist who has dug up the site at Duna, is not superstitious at all. That’s the woman on Hoskyn’s left. Next to her comes Humphrey Bookham, young George’s tutor. He, poor young devil, isn’t paid to be superstitious. As for Piggie’—he indicated again the thick-set, heavy woman on his right—‘she’s a pillar of the church, and wouldn’t dream of being superstitious. Would you, Piggie dear?’ he added, turning towards her with some suddenness.
    ‘It’s more than my job’s worth
not
to be,’ said thedark woman, Eunice Pigdon, speaking abruptly but with good humour. ‘You know that, Grannie. Don’t tease.’ She had removed her spectacles upon seating herself at the table, and now resumed them.
    ‘She’s my aunt’s secretary,’ Captain Ranmore continued, disregarding this mild rebuke, ‘and what she says goes, even among this somewhat mixed bag of relatives and friends. Well, then there are the two Clandons and, of course, Claudia Denbies.’ He paused, and his gaze rested unfathomably upon the red-haired woman. ‘I don’t know whether she’s superstitious or not, but, as she’s a celebrity, she probably is. Celebrities mostly are, I’ve noticed. They probably put down their success to luck, knowing it to be undeserved.’
    ‘Oh, but,’ said Dorothy quickly, ‘you wouldn’t call Miss Denbies’ success undeserved?’
    ‘Mrs
Denbies is certainly gifted,’ said Captain Ranmore; but he did not answer the question. Instead, he went on, without a pause, ‘By the way, if you want to telephone your people, here’s your chance. There are going to be family speeches. Perish the thought, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!’
    ‘Oh, thank you!’ said Dorothy, grateful to him at last. ‘If you’re certain it wouldn’t look funny——’
    ‘Of course not. I see that your companion and stable-mate is trying very hard to catch your eye. He has summed up the situation accurately. And, look! Bugle is bringing round the crackers. Take advantage of the hubbub and slip out. No one will notice you’ve gone, and, if they do, it still won’t matter, take my