"With pleasure, Dan. Are you dining with any one to-night?" Hillard was lonesome.
"Yes. A little bridge till eleven."
"You're hopeless. I can see you in limbo, matching coffin-plates with Charon. I'll hunt you up at eleven."
"Heard the talk?"
"About what?"
"Why, some one in the club has been using the agony column. The J.H's are being guyed unmercifully, and you'll come in for it presently. It's a case of wine on the man who did it."
Hillard felt of his collar and drew down his cuffs. "Probably some joke," he ventured tentatively.
"If it isn't, the man who would stoop to such tommyrot and tack the name of his club to it must be an ass."
"No doubt about that. Odd that this is the first time I have heard about it." But silently Hillard was swearing at his folly. There was one crumb of comfort: the incident would be forgotten in a few days.
"I may depend upon you to-night, then?" said Merrihew.