“Appropriate colour for Christmas,” put in Evelyn.
“And the heat,” supplied Elvesdon.
“Who ever saw a ghost with a very red and skinned nose either?” observed Edala, with a severe glance at her brother, whose face still bore traces of the exposure of a hard campaign.
“Look here, Mrs Elvesdon, don’t you make personal remarks,” retorted Hyland. “Two can play at that game, and I for one never saw you look so dashed fetching as you’re doing now—and that’s saying a great deal. Gee-yupp!” pretending to dodge the bottle which his sister pretended to throw at him. “Elvesdon, keep your wife in order, can’t you. It’s a bad example for us two old bachelors—eh. Prior? Two poor old bachelors!”
“The remedy for that pitiable state lies in your own hands, Hyland,” said Evelyn serenely. “Why don’t you apply it?”
“That’s what I might have been going to do, if the dad there hadn’t been so beastly slim in cutting me out,” retorted the incorrigible rascal. “I don’t know what to say about Prior. Pity you haven’t got any sisters, Evelyn.”
“Plenty of other people have, Hyland,” said Elvesdon. “A man crowned with your laurels, you know, isn’t likely to go begging.”
“Oh here, I say, shut up,” was the reply, made half seriously, the point being that the speaker had served all through the campaign and that with some distinction.
“No fear,” cried Edala. “You started the campaign of chaff, Hyland, and you can’t yell out if you get the worst of it.”
“Ah. I like to see—er—pals, shall we call it? stand by each other. Now then Elvesdon—back her up.”