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.” Here the goats looked rather guiltily at their cloven hoofs.“But I’ve got my little bit and I wouldn’t mind putting it into this ‘Old Ship’ here, if our friend would allow it to be run on business lines.And especially if he’d enlarge the premises a bit.Ha! ha! And if our good friend, the Doctor–”“You rascal fellow!” spluttered Meadows, “your goot friend the doctor will make you dance before a magistrate.”“Now, don’t be unbusinesslike,” reasoned the brewer.“It won’t hurt your sales.It’s quite a different public, don’t you see? Do talk like a business man.”“I am not a business man,” said the scientist, with fiery eyes, “I am a servant of humanity.”“Then,” said Dalroy, “why do you never do what your master tells you?”“The motor has crossed the river,” said Humphrey Pump.“You would undo all my works,” cried the Doctor, with sincere passion.“When I have built this town myself, when I have made it sober and healthful myself, when I am awake and about before anyone in the town myself, watching over its interests–you would ruin all to sell your barbaric and fundamentally beastly beer.And then you call me a goot friend.I am not a goot friend!”“That I can’t say,” growled Hugby, “but if it comes to that–aren’t you trying to sell–”A motor car drove up with a white explosion of dust, and about six very dusty people got out of it.Even through the densest disguise of the swift motorist, Pump perceived in many of them the peculiar style and bodily carriage of the police.The most evident exception was a long and more slender figure, which, on removing its cap and goggles, disclosed the dark and drooping features of J.Leveson, Secretary.He walked across to the little, old millionaire, who instantly recognized him and shook hands.They confabulated for some little time, turning over some official documents.Dr.Meadows cleared his throat and said to the whole crowd.“I am very glad to be able to announce to you all that this extraordinary outrage has been too late attempted.Lord Ivywood, with the promptitude he so invariably shows, has immediately communicated to places of importance such as this a most just and right alteration of the law, which exactly meets the present case.“We shall sleep in jail tonight,” said Humphrey, Pump.“I know it in my bones.”“It is enough to say,” proceeded the millionaire, “that by the law as it now stands, any innkeeper, even if he display a sign, is subject to imprisonment if he sells alcohol on premises where it has not been previously kept for three days.”“I thought it would be something like that,” muttered Pump.“Shall we give up, Captain, or shall we try a bolt for it?”Even the impudence of Dalroy appeared for the instant dazed and stilled.He was staring forlornly up into the abyss of sky above him, as if, like Shelley, he could get inspiration from the last and purest clouds and the perfect hues of the ends of Heaven.At last he said, in a soft and meditative voice, the single syllable,“Sells!”Pump looked at him sharply with a remarkable expression growing on his grim face.But the Doctor was far too rabidly rejoicing in his triumph to understand the Captain’s meaning.“Sells alcohol, are the exact words,” he insisted, brandishing the blue oblong of the new Act of Parliament.“So far as I am concerned they are inexact words,” said Captain Dalroy, with polite indifference.“I have not been selling alcohol, I have been giving it away.Has anybody here paid me money? Has anybody here seen anybody else pay me money? I’m a philanthropist just like Dr.Meadows.I’m his living image!”Mr.Leveson and Dr.Meadows looked across at each other, and on the face of the first was consternation, and on the second a full return of all his terrors of the complicated law.“I shall remain here for several weeks,” continued the Captain, leaning elegantly on the can, “and shall give away, gratis, such supplies of this excellent drink as may be demanded by the citizens [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]