"Of course. I knew you wouldn't pay them yourself."
"Ah! but they like travelling with me--yes!"
"I shouldn't care about a pet monkey myself," said Eustace rudely.
"No! you're a Robinson Crusoe kind of chap, ain't you?" said Billy, quite unmoved by his epithet. "By the way, I saw your cousin and his wife in Paris--yes! Wife cut me. Beastly rude I think, when I knew her father so well--he was a great friend of mine--rather!"
"Not a very creditable thing to boast of," replied Eustace, enraged at this reference to Lady Errington.
"Oh, who cares? If Asmodeus unroofed the houses in town, you bet there'd be 'ructions. Just so!"
"You do your best to play Asmodeus."
"Yes--want to purify Society. By the way, Mrs. Veilsturm was asking after you."
"Very kind of her!"
"And Major Griff. I wonder Society tolerates those two, Eh?"