tion," said Mrs. Sangrail. "Do you suppose
they won't speak to one another?"

"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them to leave off. Their
remarks on each other's conduct and character have hitherto been governed
by the fact that only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through
the post for a penny."

"I can't put Dora off," said Mrs. Sangrail. "I've already postponed her
visit once, and nothing short of a miracle would make Jane leave before
her self-allotted fortnight is over."

"Miracles are rather in my line," said Clovis. "I don't pretend to be
very hopeful in this case but I'll do my best."

"As long as you don't drag me into it--" stipulated his mother.

* * * * *

"Servants are a bit of a nuisance," muttered Clovis, as he sat in the
smoking-room after lunch, talking fitfully to Jane Martlet in the
intervals of putting together the materials of a cocktail, which he had
irreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It was
partly compounded of old brandy and partly of curacoa; there were other
ingredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed.

"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with the
exuberant plunge of a hunter when it leaves the high road and feels turf
under its hoofs; "I should think they were! The trouble I've had in
getting suited this year you would hardly believe. But I don't see what
you have to complain of--your mother is so wonderfully lucky in her
servants. Sturridge, for instance--he's been with you for years, and I'm
sure he's a paragon as butlers go."

"That's just the trouble," said Clovis. "It's when servants have been
with you for years that they become a really serious nuisance. The 'here
to-day and gone to-morrow' sort don't matter--you've simply got to
replace them; it's the stayers and the paragons that are the real worry."

"But if they give satisfaction--"

"That doesn't prevent them from giving trouble. Now, you've mentioned
Sturridge--it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I made
the observation about servants being a nuisance."

"The excellent Sturridge a nuisance! I can't believe it."

"I know he's excellent, and we just couldn't get along without him; he's
the one reliable element in this rather haphazard household. But his
very orderliness has had an effect on him. Have you ever considered what
it must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the
correct