The other looked up.
“Eh?”
“To see for yourself what I told you.”
Mr. Morton snorted abruptly.
“Lord!” he said, “I thought we’d done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall’s all I need.”
Laurie sighed elaborately.
“Oh! of course, if you won’t face facts, one can’t expect. …”
“Look here, Baxter,” said the other almost kindly, “I advise you to give this up. It plays the very devil with nerves, as I told you. Why, you’re as jumpy as a cat yourself. And it isn’t worth it. If there was anything in it, why it would be another thing, but. …”
“I … I wouldn’t give it up for all the world,” stammered Laurie in his zeal. “You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Why … why, I’m not a fool … I know that. And do you think I’m ass enough to be taken in by a trick? And as if a trick could be played like that in a drawing room! I tell you I examined every inch. …”
“Look here,” said Morton, looking curiously at the boy—for there was something rather impressive about Laurie’s manner—“look here; you’d better see old Cathcart. Know him? … Well, I’ll introduce you any time. He’ll tell you another tale. Of course, I don’t believe all the rot he talks; but, at any rate, he’s sensible enough to have given it all up. Says he wouldn’t touch it with a pole. And he was rather a big bug at it in his time, I believe.”
Laurie sneered audibly.