"If he has clothed you to-night, Madame, I can forgive him anything."
We passed to a table at which Berry was superintending the icing of some champagne.
"Ah, there you are!" he exclaimed. "Had your evening dance? Good. I ordered this little hopeful pour passer le temps. They've two more baubles in the offing, and sharp at one-thirty we start on fried eggs and beer. Judging from the contracts into which my wife has entered during the last six minutes, we shall be here till three." Here he produced and prepared to inflate an air-cushion. "The great wheeze about these shock-absorbers is not to——"
There was a horrified cry from Daphne and a shriek of laughter from
Adèle and Jill.
"I implore you," said my sister, "to put that thing away."
"What thing?" said her husband, applying the nozzle to his lips.
"That cushion thing. How could you——"
"What! Scrap my blow-me-tight?" said Berry. "Darling, you rave. You're going to spend the next four hours afloat upon your beautiful toes, with a large spade-shaped hand supporting the small of your back. I'm not. I'm going to maintain a sitting posture, with one of the 'nests for rest' provided by a malignant Casino directly intervening between the base of my trunk and the floor. Now, I know that intervention. It's of the harsh, unyielding type. Hence this air-pocket."
With that, he stepped on to the floor, raised the air-cushion as if it were an instrument of music, and, adopting the attitude and manners of a cornet soloist, exhaled into the nozzle with all his might.
There was a roar of laughter.