24/27 He looked round at me, in his dry, droning way, and said: "The Indians will want their umbrellas, Mr.Betteredge, to-night!" It was all very well for HIM to joke. But I was not an eminent traveller--and my way in this world had not led me into playing ducks and drakes with my own life, among thieves and murderers in the outlandish places of the earth. I went into my own little room, and sat down in my chair in a perspiration, and wondered helplessly what was to be done next. In this anxious frame of mind, other men might have ended by working themselves up into a fever; I ended in a different way. |