"Bravo, Dicky!" said Collingwood. "Now then, don't relax your attention, old chap. The next is that we all stayed the night at this hotel."
The index finger of Lord Ellerdine's right hand moved from the thumb to the first finger of his left. He appeared to have got it all right, when suddenly a doubt seemed to enter the vacant spaces of his mind.
"What, here?" he asked.
"Yes, here; at this hotel."
"Oh! Come, old chap! Doesn't that look like a bally lie? Now think it over for yourself. Listen. 'We all stayed the night at this hotel.'"
Collingwood was a patient man, and he listened without any betrayal of what he really felt in dealing with this pleasant fool.
"Well," he said, "what's wrong with it?"
"Oh! it lacks something," was the reply; and though the speaker did not amplify his statement, his voice was full of doubt and hesitation.
"Oh, rot!" Collingwood answered. "It's only wrong because we didn't stay here. If you can say, 'We all got on the wrong train,' surely to goodness you can say that we all stayed the night at this hotel?"
"Yes," Ellerdine answered slowly. "I suppose it ought to be easy enough."