ir place and they
entertained me royally."
"Where's your wife?" I said, suddenly.
"She's in our town house," he answered.
"And that's in Upper Brooke Street?" said Bee.
"And where's your sister, the Honourable Eleanor?" I said.
"What's that got to do with it?" said our friend.
"Nothing," I said. "I just wondered if you'd noticed that, every single
time we have been in London for the past two years, neither your sister
nor your wife has ever called on Mrs. Jimmie; although, as you have just
admitted, you stayed two months with them in America. All that you have
done in return for the mountain trip that Jimmie arranged for you,
taking you in a private car to hunt big game, taking you fishing and
arranging for you to see everything in America that you wanted, when you
know that Jimmie isn't rich judged by the largest fortunes in
America--all, all I say, that you have done for him in return for
everything he did for you was to put him up at your club and take them
to the races twice, and even though you saw your wife at a distance you
never introduced them, although once you stopped and spoke to her. Now,
what do you think of yourself?"
"I think--I think," he stammered.
"No, you don't think," said Bee. "You flatter yourself."
He stared at us helplessly, but we were enjoying ourselves too
maliciously to let up on him.
"I never was talked to so in my life," he said.
"No, perhaps not," I said, pleasantly. "But it has done you good, hasn't
it? Confess now, don't you feel a little better?"
His face, which was very red at all times, grew a little more claret
coloured, and he evidently wanted very much to get angry, but Bee and I
were so very cheerful, almost affectionate in our manner of mentally
skinning him, that he couldn't seem to pull himself together.
"He'll never stay after that," said Bee, complacently, to me afterward.
But he _did_ stay, and although Jimmie was furious, he had every
intention of letting him have his bedroom again, which Bee and I so
fiercely resented that we locked Jimmie in his stateroom, where, after a
few feeble pounds on the door, he resigned himself to his fate and got
the only night's sleep that he had in the eight days of Henley.
Whether the Honourable Edwardes Edwardes slept on his side on the bench
or on his back on the dinner-table, or stood up all night, we never
knew. He was a little cross at breakfast, and complained of feeling "a
bit stiff." But nobody petted
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