afternoon, or are we going to get on to the spirit-kettle and the cakes?

"I'm fair dying for a drop to drink, I can tell you. Talkin' does it.
And I never can bear those flasks. Don't trust 'em. Some careless hussy
forgets to give 'em a proper clean-out once in a way, and the next time
you take your cup o' tea out of the thing where are you? Poisoned and a
week in a nursing-home. Miss Vi Vassity, 'London's Love,' has been
sufferin' from a severe attack of insideitis, with cruel remarks from
_Snappy Bits_ on the subject. Give me hot water out of the kettle.

"Come on, Jim, you shall get it going; you're a handy man with your
feet--fingers, I mean; come on, Miss Smith. The other girls seem to have
lost themselves somewhere; always do when there's a bit of housework and
women's sphere going on, I notice. We'll spread the festive board.
Nellie'll bring on the cousin--I can see they've got secrets to talk.
S'long!"

She kept up this babble during the whole of tea in the lee of that motor
on the downs where Mr. Burke had come upon me as I drowsed after lunch.

The tea was even noisier and gayer than the lunch had been. We had this
flow of comment-on-nothing from London's Love, and a couple of songs
from our Serio, and American tour reminiscences from our Lady Acrobat.
Also a loud and giggling squabble between that lady and the
Boy-Impersonator about which of them looked her real age.

Also an exhibition of the blandishments of our Twentieth-Century Hebe,
who sat on the turf next to the Honourable Jim. She was doing her utmost
to flirt with him; putting her lazy blonde head on one side to cast
languishing glances at him, invoking his pity for a midge-bite that she
said she had discovered on her upper arm.

"Look," she murmured, holding out the sculptured limb. "Does it show?"

That softly curved, white-skinned, blue-veined and bare arm could have
been his to hold for a nearer inspection of that imperceptible wound if
he had chosen. I made sure he'd catch hold of it ... it would have been
just like him to laugh and suggest kissing it to make it well. I'm sure
that's what the "Breathing Statue Girl" meant him to do. They're just a
pair of silly flirtatious Bohemians----

Rather to my surprise the Irishman merely gave a matter-of-fact little
nod and returned in a practical tone of voice: "Yes; you've certainly
got glorious arms of your own, Miss Marmora; pity to let 'em get
sunburnt and midge-bitten. It'll show on the s