Slowly the brown eyes sank from mine to the bottom button of my waistcoat. As I moved to my place, plate in hand, he gave a protesting bark, which was answered by a fox-terrier from the box-seat of a passing van. In a flash Nobby was upon the sill of the open window, hurling defiance at the intruder.
"I don't see why he shouldn't. We can leave him at Hillingdon while we're at Church. By the way, what time does the balloon go up?"
"The marriage," said Jonah, "is to be solemnized at two o'clock. As I said a moment ago, it'll take us two hours to get there. If we start at eleven, that'll give us an hour to brush one another, lunch and rehearse the series of genial banalities with which it is the habit of wedding-guests to insult one another's intelligence."
"I believe," said Jill, "I heard the telephone."
I called upon Nobby to suspend his fury, and we all listened. Sure enough, a long spasm of ringing came simultaneously from the library and the lobby in the back hall.
"I shouldn't be surprised," said I, "if that was the Club, to tell me I've drawn a runner in the three-pound sweep." And, with that, I left my kidneys and repaired to the library.
"Can I speak to Major Pleydell?" said a voice.
I went to the foot of the stairs and shouted for Berry. There was no reply. In some annoyance I ascended the first flight and shouted again. From behind a closed door his voice answered me. It was with a malicious pleasure that I located its origin....
A moment later I opened the bathroom door.
From the depths of a luxurious bath Berry regarded me.
"That's right," he said. "You come in. Don't take any notice of me. And don't shut the door, or the servants won't be able to see in."
"You are wanted," said I, "upon the telephone."
"How interesting!" said Berry. "I suppose you told them to hold on."
He sank into a recumbent position and crossed his legs.
"What a marvellous thing," he said, "the telephone is. There's that fool, Heaven knows how many miles away, sitting with his ear glued to a piece of vulcanite, and here am I in the midst of an exacting toilet--d'you think he'd hear me if I were to shout? Or would you rather take a message?"
"It is," said I, "the Waddell Institute."
The savagery with which my brother-in-law invested a very ordinary expletive was quite remarkable.