"Look here," he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "I told you that if you went on adding to our household, I should be travelling about Europe with a caravan. You began by adopting Elsie as a sister, and I said nothing. Then you added Miss Rainer as her governess, and I warned you. Miss Rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective. All these people, I know them well, will marry; and I shall be a patriarch travelling with my tribe. It must stop."
Tinker sighed. "We are a large household—twelve of us, with Selina," he said thoughtfully. "But you might make it more compact, sir."
"More compact—how?"
"You might marry Dorothy; and then you and she could count as one."
A sudden light of exasperation brightened Sir Tancred's eyes, and he made a grab at Tinker's arm. His hand closed on empty air; Tinker was flying like the wind along the promenade.
"Tinker!" roared Sir Tancred; but Tinker went round a corner at the moment at which only the T of his name could fairly be expected to have reached him. Sir Tancred ground his teeth, and then he laughed.
Tinker made a circuit, and came down to the sea, where he found Elsie playing with two little English girls staying at Arcachon with their mother. At once she deserted them for him, and when he had withdrawn her to a distance, he said, "I've hit on a way of getting them married."
"No! Have you? You are clever!" she cried with the ungrudging admiration she always accorded him.
"Clever? It only wants a little common-sense," said Tinker with some disdain.
"I shall be glad."