“Well,” he yawned, “there’s nothing very startling about that! I don’t see the answer.”
“No! Naturally you wouldn’t!” Mrs. Pratt pounded a stamp on an envelope.
The M.P. turned to his daughter. “Tell her old dad what it means, little Maudie.”
“Mother’s giving a big dinner party, on the seventeenth.”
“Oh, my God!” sighed Augustus. Then, “I’ve got to go to Montreal on that date, Minnie—honest, I have!”
“You dare! And listen, Gus, while I think of it; if I ever hear that you’ve given one atom of support to that Dilling, I’ll have my trunks packed and the house closed, before you can get home! Now, don’t forget!”
“Dear, dear!” Pratt assumed an air of panic. “What’s the poor beggar been up to now?”
“He’s up to getting himself into the Cabinet, if men like you don’t want the job, yourselves—that’s what he’s up to. And once in the Cabinet, you know where he’ll land next.”
“Where?”
“In the Prime Minister’s seat,” returned Mrs. Pratt, sourly.