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"Don't hover about me in that disgustingly silly way, Peters."
"Hage, sir!" roared the admiral, who for some unexplained reason always felt like striking a man who misplaced his "h's." "I never heard of such a word."
"Peters is hold, sir," said the manager, in his agitation laying special stress on the letter "h" in this sentence.
"Hold! Hold! Are you talking of a ship? Haven't you been taught to speak English? I have asked you what reason you can give for the dismissal of Peters. Will you be so good as to answer me, and use only words to which I am accustomed?"
The badgered manager, remembering that he had a legal contract with the club which that body could not break without giving him, at least, a year's notice or bestowing upon him a year's pay, plucked up courage and answered with some asperity:
"Peters is in his dotage, sir; 'e's hover heighty-six years hold, if 'e's a day, sir."
Lucky for Mr. Norton that the long committee table was between him and the angry admiral. The latter began stumping down the room, rapping on the table with the knob of his stick as he went, as if he had some thought of assaulting the frightened manager.
"In his dotage at eighty-six!" he exclaimed. "Do you intend to insult the whole club, sir, by such an idiotic remark? How old do you think I am, sir ? Do you think I am in my dotage?"
The manager, his grasp on the handle of the door, attempted to assure the approaching admiral that he had no intention whatever of imputing anything to anybody except to old Peters, but he maintained that if he was to reform the club, he must be allowed to make such changes as he thought necessary, without being interfered with. This remark, so far from pouring oil on the troubled waters, added to the exasperation of the admiral.
"Reform! The club has no need of reform."
So the conference ended futilely in the manager going back to his den and the admiral stumping off to call a meeting of the House Committee.
When the venerable relics of a bygone age known as the House Committee assembled in the room set apart for them, their chairman began by explaining that they were called upon to meet a crisis, which it behooved them to deal with in that calm and judicial frame of mind that always characterized their deliberations. Although he admitted that the new manager had succeeded in making him angry, still he would now treat the case with that equable temper which all who knew him were well aware he possessed. Whereupon he disclosed to them the reason for their being called together, waxing more and more vehement as he continued, his voice becoming louder and louder; and at last he emphasized his remarks by pounding on the table with the head of his stick
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"Peters is in his dotage, sir."
