“Mrs. Griggs!” exclaimed Hawkins, eying my wife with a glare which in any other man would have earned him the best licking I could give him—but which, like many other things, had to be excused in Hawkins.
“Herbert!” said his wife, authoritatively. “Be still. Actually, you're quite excited!”
Hawkins lapsed into sulky silence, and the meal ended with just a hint of constraint.
Mrs. Hawkins and my wife adjourned to the drawing-room, and Hawkins and I were left, theoretically, to smoke a post-prandial cigar. Hawkins, however, had other plans for my entertainment.
“Are they up-stairs?” he muttered, as footsteps sounded above us.
“They seem to be.”
“Then you come with me,” whispered Hawkins, heading me toward the servants' staircase.
“Where?” I inquired suspiciously.
There was a peculiar glitter in his eye.
“Come along and you'll see,” chuckled Hawkins, beginning the ascent. “Oh, I'll tell you what,” he continued, pausing on the second landing, “these women make me tired!”