By an amazing stroke of luck I was enabled to continue:
"'And echo caught softly the sound as it fell!'" with a glance at Mr. Tebbutts that showed I was aware the quotation was directed at his missing aspirates.
As the door closed, the visitor turned to Flurry and said impressively:
"There's just one thing, Mr. Knox, I should like to mention, if you will allow me. Are the drains quite in order?"
"God knows," said Flurry, pulling hard at a badly-lighted cigarette and throwing himself into a chair by the turf fire.
"Mrs. Knox's health has held out against them for about sixty years," I remarked.
"Well, as to that," replied Mr. Tebbutts, "I feel it is only right to mention that the dear old lady was very giddy with me in the garden this afternoon."
Flurry received this remarkable statement without emotion.
"Maybe she's taken a fancy to you!" he said brutally. "If it wasn't that it was whipped cream."
Mr. Tebbutts' bulging eyes sought mine in complete mystification; I turned to the fire, and to it revealed my emotions. Flurry was not at all amused.