“Well, I can’t say any more,” he remarked. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
Birds was leaning his elbows on the table, with his head in his hands. He spoke in a choked voice.
“Don’t think anything more about it, old chap,” he said. ’Twasn’t your fault.”
Badsley got up.
“Well, good-night, people,” he said.
“Stop a minute. As you have talked about Grannie, you might like to hear more about her. It wasn’t really such a blow, because she was eighty-five, and had cancer in the pit of her stomach. Also staggers.”
A faint conjecture dawned in Badsley’s mind.
“I say, are you ragging?” he asked.
“Of course I am. I haven’t had a grandmother for years, and I suppose I shall never get one now. I began too late. I can’t think what Sphodrias was about.”
Badsley stumbled over Jim, who was loudly cackling.