"You'll call him Prince Varasashvili, and that's all there is to it," said Ermyntrude tartly.
"Well, I won't. For one thing, I don't like it, and for another, I couldn't remember it - not that I want to, because I don't. And if you take my advice, you'll be careful how you say it. If you start introducing this fellow as Prince Varasash - whatever-it-is, you'll have people saying you've been mixing your drinks."
"I must say it's a bit of a tongue-twister," remarked Mary. "You'll have to write it down for me, Aunt Ermy."
"It'll be quite all right if you just call him Prince," said Ermyntrude kindly.
"Well, if that's your idea of quite all right it isn't mine," said Wally. "Nice fool you'll look when you say Prince, and find the poor old dog wagging his tail at you."
This aspect of the situation struck Ermyntrude most forcibly. "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. "I must say, it does make things a bit awkward. I mean, you know what Prince is! It would be awful if I went and said, "Get off that chair, Prince," as I don't doubt I will do, thanks to the way you spoil that dog, Wally, and Alexis thought I was speaking to him. Oh well, Prince will have to be tied up, that's all."
"Now, that's one thing I won't put up with," said Wally. "It's little enough I ever ask, but have my poor old dog tied up for the sake of a Russian prince I don't know and don't want to know, I won't. If you'd asked me before inviting the fellow, I should have said don't, because I don't like foreigners; but, as usual, no one consulted me."
Ermyntrude looked concerned. "Well, I'm sorry you're so set against Alexis, Wally, but honestly he doesn't speak foreign."
Wally paid not the slightest heed to this, but said: "A set of wasters, that's what those White Russians are. I'm not surprised they had a revolution. Serves them right! What was this chap of yours doing at Antibes? You needn't tell me! Living on some rich woman, that's what he was doing!" He found that his ward had raised her eyes quickly to his face, and was flushing rather uncomfortably, and added: "Yes, I know what you're thinking, but I shall be a wealthy man one of these days, so the cases aren't the same. When my Aunt Clara dies, I shall pay Ermyntrude back every penny."
Mary made no remark. Wally's Aunt Clara, who had been an inmate for the past ten years of a Home for Mentally Deficients, was well known to her by repute, having served Wally as an excuse for his various extravagances ever since she could remember.