Are to be feared.”
Henry VIII, 1, 2
“Murbles is coming round to dinner to-night, Charles,” said Wimsey. “I wish you’d stop and have grub with us too. I want to put all this family history business before him.”
“Where are you dining?”
“Oh, at the flat. I’m sick of restaurant meals. Bunter does a wonderful bloody steak and there are new peas and potatoes and genuine English grass. Gerald sent it up from Denver specially. You can’t buy it. Come along. Ye olde English fare, don’t you know, and a bottle of what Pepys calls Ho Bryon. Do you good.”
Parker accepted. But he noticed that, even when speaking on his beloved subject of food, Wimsey was vague and abstracted. Something seemed to be worrying at the back of his mind, and even when Mr. Murbles appeared, full of mild legal humour, Wimsey listened to him with extreme courtesy indeed, but with only half his attention.
They were partly through dinner when, a propos of nothing, Wimsey suddenly brought his fist down on the mahogany with a crash that startled even Bunter, causing him to jerk a great crimson splash of the Haut Brion over the edge of the glass upon the tablecloth.
“Got it!” said Lord Peter.
Bunter in a low shocked voice begged his lordship’s pardon.
“Murbles,” said Wimsey, without heeding him, “isn’t there a new Property Act?”