"Hid a
sovereign
yesterday!
Kipling - Poems
"These will do," he said at last; "I can't say I think much of your
taste in slippers, but the fit's the thing. " He slipped his feet into a
pair of sock-like sambhur-skin foot coverings, found a long chair, and
lay at length.
"They're my own pet pair," Torpenhow said. "I was just going to put them
on myself. "
"All your reprehensible selfishness. Just because you see me happy for a
minute, you want to worry me and stir me up. Find another pair. "
"Good for you that Dick can't wear your clothes, Torp. You two live
communistically," said the Nilghai.
"Dick never has anything that I can wear. He's only useful to sponge
upon. "
"Confound you, have you been rummaging round among my clothes, then? "
said Dick. "I put a sovereign in the tobacco-jar yesterday. How do you
expect a man to keep his accounts properly if you----"
Here the Nilghai began to laugh, and Torpenhow joined him.
"Hid a sovereign yesterday! You're no sort of financier. You lent me a
fiver about a month back. Do you remember? " Torpenhow said.
"Yes, of course. "
"Do you remember that I paid it you ten days later, and you put it at
the bottom of the tobacco? "
"By Jove, did I? I thought it was in one of my colour-boxes. "
"You thought! About a week ago I went into your studio to get some
'baccy and found it. "
"What did you do with it? "
"Took the Nilghai to a theatre and fed him. "
"You couldn't feed the Nilghai under twice the money--not though you
gave him Army beef. Well, I suppose I should have found it out sooner or
later. What is there to laugh at?
