at this
moment broke impatiently in on his meditations.

"Come along, Bennett. It's your deal. It's no good looking at the rain.
Looking at it won't stop it."

Mr. Mortimer's nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather.

Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as
partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against
Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to
do.

Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through
the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed
from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled
his legs round his chair.

"I have fourteen cards," said Mr. Mortimer. "That's the third time
you've mis-dealt."

"I don't care how many cards you've got!" said Mr. Bennett with heat.
"That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!"

He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover
and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog,
handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder
seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged
countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was
Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to
serve the establishment as a watch-dog.

"He won't hurt you," said Mr. Mortimer carelessly.

"You keep saying that!" replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. "How do you
know? He's a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were
buying him, I would have had something to say about it!"

"Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am within
my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least,
Wilhelmina has."

"Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith," said Billie.
"I've seen them playing together."

Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He
disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a
faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He
disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him,
though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He
disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett.
And he disliked Eustace.

Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the
others. He resented the young man's presence in the house; and he
resented the