“Well, you know, Sir Wilfrid, he’s responsible for the table-ware.”
“Surely,” remarked Sir Wilfrid solemnly, “he doesn’t suspect me, does he?”
“Not yet, Sir Wilfrid, not yet.”
Then again I remarked to him that I supposed he travelled a good deal, and he said he did.
“And you put up at first-class hotels, too, I presume?” He acknowledged that he did.
“Did you ever notice, Sir Wilfrid, how small the cakes of soap in the bedrooms are nowadays?”
He said he had, and wanted to know the reason of their diminished size.
“Because the hotels don’t lose so much soap now.”
And the raillery was just what he wanted to indulge in after, perhaps, a vexatious and trying day at his office.