Lord Oxted looked up from the evening paper which he was reading distractedly but diligently, and made a bee line for the door. His exit, though made without protest, was somewhat marked. He had no manners, as his wife often told him.
"The ice house," said Harry, as if he were giving out a text to a diminishing congregation, and a spicy emphasis was required to retain the rest, "and the gun, and the sluice."
The shadow of Lord Oxted lingered a moment in the doorway at this alluring selection, but immediately disappeared on the next words: "I'll make your blood run cold!"
"Has the Luck been singing its nursery rhymes?" asked Lady Oxted, uncertain what to do with that white elephant, the tongs.
"Singing!" cried Harry, digging the shovel into the fire. "Singing quo' she! My good woman, I can and will a tale unfold which, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now," said he, with a felicitous air.
Lady Oxted annexed the shovel also. Thus there were two white elephants.
"I am not the washerwoman, Harry," she remarked with reason.
"No, dear aunt," said he, growing suddenly grave. "And if I hadn't been so absurdly happy to-night, I shouldn't have made a joke of it, for, indeed, it was no joke. Anyhow, the doctor congratulated me on my admirable nerves."
"Some people when they prepare to tell a story," said Lady Oxted, "begin at the beginning. Others—this is without prejudice—begin at the end and work laboriously and slowly backward. Let me at least ask you, Harry, not to be slow. Tell us about the doctor, as we are to go backward. Did his name begin with an A?"
"Quite right," said Harry, "and it went on with an R."