e enjoyed the last quarter of an hour, do you?"
said Lady Blemley bitterly. "My husband and I are very fond of
Tobermory--at least, we were before this horrible accomplishment was
infused into him; but now, of course, the only thing is to have him
destroyed as soon as possible."

"We can put some strychnine in the scraps he always gets at
dinner-time," said Sir Wilfrid, "and I will go and drown the stable cat
myself. The coachman will be very sore at losing his pet, but I'll say
a very catching form of mange has broken out in both cats and we're
afraid of it spreading to the kennels."

"But my great discovery!" expostulated Mr. Appin; "after all my years
of research and experiment--"

"You can go and experiment on the shorthorns at the farm, who are under
proper control," said Mrs. Cornett, "or the elephants at the Zoological
Gardens. They're said to be highly intelligent, and they have this
recommendation, that they don't come creeping about our bedrooms and
under chairs, and so forth."

An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding
that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be
indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than
Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement. Public
opinion, however, was against him--in fact, had the general voice been
consulted on the subject it is probable that a strong minority vote
would have been in favour of including him in the strychnine diet.

Defective train arrangements and a nervous desire to see matters
brought to a finish prevented an immediate dispersal of the party, but
dinner that evening was not a social success. Sir Wilfrid had had
rather a trying time with the stable cat and subsequently with the
coachman. Agnes Resker ostentatiously limited her repast to a morsel
of dry toast, which she bit as though it were a personal enemy; while
Mavis Pellington maintained a vindictive silence throughout the meal.
Lady Blemley kept up a flow of what she hoped was conversation, but her
attention was fixed on the doorway. A plateful of carefully dosed fish
scraps was in readiness on the sideboard, but sweets and savoury and
dessert went their way, and no Tobermory appeared either in the
dining-room or kitchen.

The sepulchral dinner was cheerful compared with the subsequent vigil
in the smoking-room. Eating and drinking had at least supplied a
distraction and cloak to the prevailing embarrassme