"Good gracious!" the flat mistress exclaimed. "I wonder who that can be. Just go and see, Ozzie, darling." And she looked at Ozzie as if to say: "I hope it isn't one of your indiscreet bachelor friends."
Ozzie hastened obediently out.
"It may be Charlie," ventured Eve. "Wouldn't it be nice if he called?"
"Yes, wouldn't it?" Sissie agreed. "I did 'phone him up to try to get him to dinner, but naturally he was away for the day. He's always as invisible as a millionaire nowadays. Besides I feel somehow this place would be too much, too humble, for the mighty Charles. Buckingham Palace would be more in his line. But we can't all be speculators and profiteers."
"Sissie!" protested their mother mildly.
After mysterious and intriguing noises at the front-door had finished, and the front-door had made the whole flat vibrate to its bang, Ozzie puffed into the room with three packages, the two smaller being piled upon the third.
"They're addressed to you," said Ozzie to his father-in-law.
"Did you give the man anything?" Sissie asked quickly.
"No, it was Carthew and the parlourmaid—Machin, is her name?"
"Oh!" said Sissie, apparently relieved.