The Clicking of Cuthbert

I nodded. If the thing was to be done at all, it was unquestionably a

niblick shot.

"I had just made my eleventh attempt to get out of that ravine," the

girl went on, "with George talking all the time about the recent

excavations in Egypt, when suddenly--you know what it is when something

seems to snap----"

"I had the experience with my shoe-lace only this morning."

"Yes, it was like that. Sharp--sudden--happening all in a moment. I

suppose I must have said something, for George stopped talking about

Egypt and said that he was reminded by a remark of the last speaker's

of a certain Irishman-----"

I pressed her hand.

"Don't go on if it hurts you," I said, gently.

"Well, there is very little more to tell. He bent his head to light his

pipe, and well--the temptation was too much for me. That's all."

"You were quite right."

"You really think so?"

"I certainly do. A rather similar action, under far less provocation,

once made Jael the wife of Heber the most popular woman in Israel."

"I wish I could think so too," she murmured. "At the moment, you know,

I was conscious of nothing but an awful elation. But--but--oh, he was

such a darling before he got this dreadful affliction. I can't help

thinking of G-George as he used to be."

She burst into a torrent of sobs.

"Would you care for me to view the remains?" I said.

"Perhaps it would be as well."

She led me silently into the ravine. George Mackintosh was lying on his

back where he had fallen.

"There!" said Celia.

And, as she spoke, George Mackintosh gave a kind of snorting groan and

sat up. Celia uttered a sharp shriek and sank on her knees before him.

George blinked once or twice and looked about him dazedly.

"Save the women and children!" he cried. "I can swim."

"Oh, George!" said Celia.

"Feeling a little better?" I asked.

"A little. How many people were hurt?"

"Hurt?"

"When the express ran into us." He cast another glance around him.

"Why, how did I get here?"

"You were here all the time," I said.

"Do you mean after the roof fell in or before?"

Celia was crying quietly down the back of his neck.

"Oh, George!" she said, again.

He groped out feebly for her hand and patted it.

"Brave little woman!" he said. "Brave little woman! She stuck by me all

through. Tell me--I am strong enough to bear it--what caused the

explosion?"

It seemed to me a case where much unpleasant explanation might be

avoided by the exercise of a little tact.

"Well, some say one thing and some another," I said. "Whether it was a

spark from a cigarette----"

Celia interrupted me. The woman in her made her revolt against this

well-intentioned subterfuge.

"I hit you, George!"

"Hit me?" he repeated, curiously. "What with? The Eiffel Tower?"

"With my niblick."

"You hit me with your niblick? But why?"

She hesitated. Then she faced him bravely.

"Because you wouldn't stop talking."

He gaped.

"Me!" he said. "I wouldn't stop talking! But I hardly talk at

all. I'm noted for it."

Celia's eyes met mine in agonized inquiry. But I saw what had happened.

The blow, the sudden shock, had operated on George's brain-cells in

such a way as to effect a complete cure. I have not the technical

knowledge to be able to explain it, but the facts were plain.

"Lately, my dear fellow," I assured him, "you have dropped into the

habit of talking rather a good deal. Ever since we started out this

afternoon you have kept up an incessant flow of conversation!"

"Me! On the links! It isn't possible."

"It is only too true, I fear. And that is why this brave girl hit you

with her niblick. You started to tell her a funny story just as she was

making her eleventh shot to get her ball out of this ravine, and she

took what she considered the necessary steps."

"Can you ever forgive me, George?" cried Celia.

George Mackintosh stared at me. Then a crimson blush mantled his face.

"So I did! It's all beginning to come back to me. Oh, heavens!"

"Can you forgive me, George?" cried Celia again.

He took her hand in his.

"Forgive you?" he muttered. "Can you forgive me? Me--a

tee-talker, a green-gabbler, a prattler on the links, the lowest form

of life known to science! I am unclean, unclean!"

"It's only a little mud, dearest," said Celia, looking at the sleeve of

his coat. "It will brush off when it's dry."

"How can you link your lot with a man who talks when people are making

their shots?"

"You will never do it again."

"But I have done it. And you stuck to me all through! Oh, Celia!"

"I loved you, George!"

The man seemed to swell with a sudden emotion. His eye lit up, and he

thrust one hand into the breast of his coat while he raised the other

in a sweeping gesture. For an instant he appeared on the verge of a

flood of eloquence. And then, as if he had been made sharply aware of

what it was that he intended to do, he suddenly sagged. The gleam died

out of his eyes. He lowered his hand.

"Well, I must say that was rather decent of you," he said.

A lame speech, but one that brought an infinite joy to both his

hearers. For it showed that George Mackintosh was cured beyond

possibility of relapse.

"Yes, I must say you are rather a corker," he added.