Now and then
he lays down on me like this, and there's no moving him. If you think I
like it, you're a long way out. Generally speaking, I can talk him over.
I know how to deal with a gentleman. I am no daily-bread slave. But when
he has said, 'Martin, I am bored,' then look out! There's nothing to do
but to shut up, confound it!"
Schomberg, very much cast down, had listened open-mouthed.
"What's the cause of it?" he asked. "Why is he like this? I don't
understand."
"I think I do," said Ricardo. "A gentleman, you know, is not such a
simple person as you or I; and not so easy to manage, either. If only I
had something to lever him out with!"
"What do you mean, to lever him out with?" muttered Schomberg
hopelessly.
Ricardo was impatient with this denseness.
"Don't you understand English? Look here! I couldn't make this
billiard table move an inch if I talked to it from now till the end of
days--could I? Well, the governor is like that, too, when the fits are
on him. He's bored. Nothing's worthwhile, nothing's good enough, that's
mere sense. But if I saw a capstan bar lying about here, I would soon
manage to shift that billiard table of yours a good many inches. And
that's all there is to it."
He rose noiselessly, stretched himself, supple and stealthy, with
curious sideways movements of his head and unexpected elongations of his
thick body, glanced out of the corners of his eyes in the direction of
the door, and finally leaned back against the table, folding his arms on
his breast comfortably, in a completely human attitude.
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