The terrier paused in his work of destruction. Then he dropped the mangled remains of the letter and put his head on one side.
"Chocolates!"
The next second he was scrambling towards the foot of the bed....
I gathered together the débris and rose to my feet.
Nobby was sitting up in front of Jill, begging irresistibly.
"What a shame!" said the latter. "And I haven't any for you. And if I had, I mightn't give you them." She looked round appealingly. "Isn't he cute?"
"Extraordinary how that word'll fetch him," said I. "I think his late mistress must have——"
"I'm sure she must," said Berry, taking the ruins of his correspondence out of my hand. "Perhaps she also taught him to collect stamps. And / or crests. And do you mean to say you've got no chocolates for him? How shameful! I'd better run round and knock up Gunter's. Shall I slip on a coat, or will the parquet do?"
"There's no vice in him," I said shakily. "It was a misunderstanding."
With an awful look Berry gingerly withdrew from what remained of the envelope some three-fifths of a dilapidated dividend warrant, which looked as if it had been immersed in water and angrily disputed by a number of rats.