Somerville Farce Read Online Free Page A

small amusement to take your mind off the thought
that your beloved brother might be leaving the house at any moment
either to kill or to be killed?”
    Willie gave a careless wave of his hand.
“Oh, that,” he said dismissively. “There was never any danger of
you dying, Harry. All the world knows what a splendid shot you
are—and what a marvel you are with a sword. We never gave a second
thought to your chances for dispatching Somerville without so much
as breaking a sweat.”
    “How very gratifying—I think,” Glynde
pronounced ruefully, wondering how he had ever thought William
might have gained his solemn expression from worry about his
safety.
    Andrew, prudently taking up an easily
defensible position behind William’s chair, his long fingers
kneading the burgundy leather of the chair back, piped up, “It was
only when you discovered that Somerville had flown the coop that
poor devoted Willie here became distressed.” He leaned forward,
looking down at William even as one long finger poked his friend in
the neck. “Ain’t that right, Willie?”
    Willie, slapping Andy’s jabbing finger away,
responded quickly, “Right, Andy. Right as rain. Powerfully
distressed I was, to see m’brother thwarted in his bid for
revenge.”
    “Not revenge, William, at least not to my
mind. Justice, I’d call it,” Harry slid in, his sharp dark eyes not
missing Andy’s urgent poke or William’s testy response. “Myles
Somerville bilked our trusting father out of half a fortune, and
the humiliation of the thing hastened Papa’s death. No matter that
I’ve managed to recoup our losses and more, the principle of the
thing remains.”
    “Um, precisely,” Willie agreed, nodding.
“I’m a firm believer in principles m’self, as a matter of fact. I
am, ain’t I, Andy?” he asked, pushing back his head to look up at
his friend. “It can really set me off—just to think about the
principle of the thing.”
    “Willie’s a real firebrand,” Andy agreed
immediately, looking at Glynde. “That’s why I couldn’t stop him
when he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
    “What!” Willie leapt from the chair to turn
and glare at this traitor to some yet unknown, nebulous situation
Harry was increasingly seeing as “the burning fuse.” Willie took
two steps forward, and Andy took three back. “What do you mean, ‘he
decided to take matters into his own hands’? You were the one that
was prattling nineteen to the dozen about knights of old and blood
feuds and all that rot. You were the one that said it would be as
simple as spitting in a puddle. You were the one that said Harry
would be tickled to death ‘to do the dirty deed.’ You were the one
that—”
    “Yes, one! One, I said!” Andy interrupted,
holding up a single finger and wagging it in Willie’s face. “I said
it would work with one. I never said anything about more than that,
now, did I? Think on it, Willie. One was all I mentioned. I thought
we could count on your brother for one. I never said he was a
bloody stallion.”
    “Oh, really? Well, who was it who said it
didn’t make any never-mind, huh?” Willie challenged, advancing yet
another step. “And who was it who couldn’t come up with a single
idea to get us out of the mess you got us into—you, who are always
so brimful with marvelous ideas? Answer me that, will you?”
    “Boys,” Harry said, interposing himself
between his brother and Andy before the boys could come to actual
blows. He had seen the two friends come to physical violence
before, and it wasn’t easy to intervene once the fisticuffs had
begun.
    As a matter of fact, following one memorable
occasion upon which Harry had ended up with an inadvertent black
eye, delivered by one of the combatants, he had taken to throwing a
bucket of water on them as they rolled about on the floor, flailing
at each other. It was messy, and terribly hard on the carpets if
the contretemps took place indoors, the duke had acknowledged