It was Tuppy's fault that they missed the Sevilla Express. Tuppy, acquiring a sudden and passionate love for art, strayed through the Prado, lingered in the Valesquez Room, melted into a condition of ecstatic incoherence, before the wonders of Titian, the glories of Rubens, and the beauty of Paul Veronese, and finally contrived to get himself locked in at closing time.
He was discovered by a watchman, pounced upon as an international burglar, arrested, and finally released, after considerable trouble, in which the British ambassador, the Minister of Marine and the Duke were involved.
"It is no use your being angry, my dear old ferocious friend," said the penitent Tuppy. "Unfortunate as my intrusion into the realms of art may be, I merely illustrate the sayin' of that remarkable German feller who wrote a play about the devil, that Art is long an' time's doocid short, and dear old Titian an' cheery old Velasquez wait for no man."
"My dear man, you had a time table."
"Assure you, old feller, I hadn't."
"But I gave you one; a little red book."
"So you did," said Tuppy thoughtfully, "a little red book with egg marks. Now d'ye know," he said in a burst of confidence, "I didn't know that dashed thing was a time table."
"What the dickens did you think it was?" asked the Duke in tones of annoyance, "a set of sleeve links?" Thenceforward Tuppy behaved like a perfect gentleman. The Duke went further and said that Tuppy behaved like a perfect nuisance.
For if a train was due to leave at seven, and breakfast was ordered at six o'clock, you might be sure that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4 a.m. Tuppy would thrust his head into the Duke's apartment with an anxious inquiry.
"Time's a bouncin', old feller, what?" he would ask. "I hear people movin' downstairs—are you quite sure about that train?"