Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT MAY BE FIERCE WHILE IT LASTS The first to inquire whether Biggs had yet telephoned to Bones was Harkaway. He came in circumspectly, having observed a change in his old friend's manner of late. The customary twinkle in Biggs's eye had ceased to twink, a look of hostile, rigid imbecility had temporarily taken the place of his usual smile, a curious example of temporary reversion to a congenital type. At such moments, the humanising influence of a decade and a half in America seemed to Harkaway to be slipping off Biggs, as if he had lost his naturalisation papers. So, being determined to get to the bottom of the non-appearance of the Durable, and expecting Biddleson at any moment on the same errand, Harkaway paltered. " Hello, Biggs," he said cheerfully, as though he hadn't been in an hour before."Any luck with the weather these days?" Biggs was non-committal. " I wish you would fix things up old chap so that Bid and I can always have the wind at our backs when the car comes and we ride on the beach," he went on, amiably. " You see, Mrs. Biddleson says we can't smoke when the wind's ahead; afraid the ashes will fly back. No fun riding unless you can smoke. Two taps will do it, just like this." Harkaway negligently took two steps towards the instrument as if to demonstrate. He stopped in apparent surprise, exactly on the right side of the dead-line across which no friend of Biggs's would venture to step. "A-ha!" he shouted. "That's what you've been doing, is it? 28.19, was it, you told that poor old guy? And now it's above 31! You forgot to change the brass needle, old man, that's all! Can't fool me! I saw the old party from Penobscot Bay going by a few minutes ago all togged up in a slicker, a pair of gum- boots and a sou'wester. I won...