"There are mugs of all kinds, but there are very special and superlative mugs who do their mugging in London; and we are it," he said gloomily. "I had a beautiful dinner, thanks. The truites au bleu were magnificent, and the pigeons truffйs in aspic were a dream. The candidate was looking her best, which is pretty good. She went home early. Since then I've been drowning my sorrows at the Cafe Royal."
Patricia contemplated him discerningly.
"The dinner was beautiful, and the candidate was looking her best, and she went home early," she repeated. "What was the matter with her?"
"She wanted her beauty sleep," said the Saint. "After you with that barley water, Hoppy."
He stretched out a long arm and retrieved the bottle of scotch from Mr Uniatz' jealous grasp.
"What Hoppy needs is compressed whiskey, so he could get a bottle into a wineglass," he commented.
"Was it your scintillating conversation that made her yawn?" inquired Peter Quentin. "Or did she have the wrong kind of ideas about what sort of sleep would be good for her beauty?"
Simon splashed soda into his glass and drank meditatively.
"She's an attractive wench," he said. "I like her. She's so innocent and disarming, and as harmless as a hungry shark. The trouble is that if she's not careful she's going to wake up one day and find herself left in a dark alley with her throat cut, and that will be a great pity for anyone with a face and figure like hers."
"Say, where do ya get dat stuff?" demanded Mr Uniatz loudly.