"I don't ask you to recognize me until I have had a bath and a shave," he replied. "But when I have sacrificed to Hygeia, I expect to be presentable enough to dine with Mr. Winter to-night. I've been wondering all day whether I should manage to get here in time. Meanwhile, the least spot of whisky——"
I could not express my delight at his return, and unthinkingly I poured out nearly a tumbler of the neat spirit, and felt almost hurt when he returned all but one finger to the decanter.
"If you give me a dose like that, I shall certainly be unable to accompany you," he said.
I could curb my curiosity no longer. I burst out with a string of questions.
"Where have you been? What has happened to you? Why did you disappear? How——"
He stopped me. "So that's why you gave me all that whisky. You wanted to make me talk, eh?"
I laughingly disassociated myself from any such intention, and, putting the curb on my curiosity, I turned him over to Wilson to be valeted out of the semblance to a tramp.
The process took some time, and when he came downstairs in irreproachable evening clothes, there was no time for him to give me the history of his adventures unless we were to miss our dinner.
"And that," declared Forrest, "I absolutely refuse to do; for, with the exception of sixpenny worth of rum and a crust of bread and cheese, nothing has passed my lips since dinner last night."
"Then you will be glad to hear that the Winters are punctual people," I remarked as we at once set out for my neighbour's house.