"It is believed to be Mr Simpson," said Archie.
Simpson looked up with a start, and jerked his glasses into his tea. He fished them out and wiped them thoughtfully.
"The credible," he began, "is rarely——"
"Gentlemen, I pray you silence for Mr Simpson's epigram," cried Archie.
"Oh, I always thought Mr Simpson wrote verses in The Saturday Review," said Miss Fortescue in the silence which followed.
"As a relaxation only," I explained. "The other is his life-work. We read him with great interest; that bit about the heavy roller being requisitioned is my favourite line."
"Mr Simpson and Killick and Crawford all play in glasses," put in Myra eagerly, across the table.
"That is their only point in common," added Archie.
"Oh, isn't he a very good player?"
"Well, he's a thoroughly honest and punctual and sober player," I said, "but—the fact is, he and I and the Major don't make many runs nowadays. We generally give, as he has said in one of his less popular poems, a local habitation to the—er—airy nothing."