“They seem to be having a gay old time,” said he, as a particularly wild burst of laughter came from the dining-room. He hesitated. “Who is out there?”
Rachel was cunning. “I don’t know the names, sir. They’re—they’re strangers to me.”
At that instant the voice of Fairfax came to his ears, loudly proclaiming a health to the invalid who was going to Reno. Harvey stood there in the hall, listening to the toast. He heard it to the end, and the applause that followed. If he were to accept the diagnosis of the speaker, Nellie was repairing to Reno to be cured of an affliction that had its inception seven years before, a common malady, but not fatal if taken in time. The germ, or, more properly speaking, the parasite, unlike most bacteria, possessed but two legs, and so on and so forth.
The laughter was just dying away when Harvey—who recognised himself as the pestiferous germ alluded to—strode into the room, followed by the white-faced Rachel.
“Who was it, Rachel?” called out Nellie, 160 from behind the enormous centrepiece of roses which obstructed her view of the unwelcome visitor.
The little man in the ulster piped up, shrilly:—
“She don’t know my name, but I guess you do, if you’ll think real hard.”
There were ten at the table, flushed with wine and the exertion of hilarity. Twenty eyes were focussed on the queer, insignificant little man in the doorway. If they had not been capable of focussing them on anything a moment before, they acquired the power to do so now.
Nellie, staring blankly, arose. She wet her lips twice before speaking.
“Who let you in here?” she cried, shrilly.