“Blast it, Verbeena, you little rotter, what the deuce I say, you know, is all this bally, bloomin’, sand-eatin’ desert journey about anyway? I say, my dear chappie, what is the idea?”
“None of your damned biznai, old thing. And there you have it.”
“But I should really so like to know.”
“Tosh!”
“But all the Mollie Jawags back at the Biscuit will jazz me awf’ly about permitting you to tack off alone this way with——” Lord Tawdry waved his hand toward Musty Ale and his turbaned crew.
“As if it would really worry you,” said Miss Mayonnaise with a very unboyish giggle.
“It doesn’t, I confess, since Bertie Butternut’s mother is financing you. And yet—no, I can’t allow it. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t lift me head if anything—er—anything, let us say, Oriental happened.”
“Well, you are seldom able to lift your head after ten in the morning anyway,” said Verbeena. “Let us waste no more time, my beloved brother. Get into mental condition with yourself quickly and know that for the next month a kid of the desert am I. Ain’t I twenty-one now? Got a vote that’s just as good as yours at ’ome, and a punch that I think is better.
“Nothing stops me—Tawd, nothing, old top. So take a spin for yourself back to the Biscuit. And whatever thinking you do you can start all over again from there.”
Verbeena paused, astonished at herself.