And some of us are nephews, and all of us are brothers.’
‘Then are you ready to start, your honour?’ said the chauffeur, when they had finished dancing.
David pulled himself together.
‘Yes, but I am taking an invalid with me,’ he said. ‘It’s my uncle, who is far from well, like the spider!’
‘The one that sat down next that old woman?’ asked the chauffeur, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘He’s all right again, he is.’
‘It’s that sort of illness,’ said David. ‘He’s coming to tea with me, but he had better have a little drive first, to give him an appetite. We’ll go along some road with plenty of telegraph wires. They make him feel better.’
The window of the shoemaker’s house was thrown open, and David’s uncle looked out in his mask.
‘Much better,’ he said. ‘Better much, much better,’ and he closed it again so violently that all the glass broke.
‘Crash!’ said the second of the airmen. He had a very long elastic sort of nose, which David had not noticed before. Then both of them and the chauffeur opened their mouths very wide, as if they were going to sing again.
‘There must be no more singing,’ said David sternly, and they all shut their mouths again with a snap.