The two brothers walked along the hall, and John longed to prod George with a heavy, spiked pole.
"Going out, Touchwood?" inquired an elderly man of military appearance, who was practicing golf putts from one cabbage rose to another on the Brussels carpet.
"Yes, I'm going out, Major. You know my brother, don't you? You remember Major Downman, John?"
George left his brother with the major and toiled listlessly upstairs.
"I think I once saw a play of yours, Mr. Touchwood."
John smiled as mechanically as the major might have returned a salute.
"The Fall of Nineveh, wasn't it?"
The author bowed an affirmative: it was hardly worth while differentiating between Nineveh and Babylon when he was just going out.
"Yes," the major persisted. "Wasn't there a good deal of talk about the scantness of some of the ladies' dresses?"
"There may have been," John said. "We had to save on the dresses what we spent on the hanging gardens."