St. Nivel turned to the keeper.
"Give me the brandy flask," he said.
The man produced it, and my cousin poured some out in the little silver cup attached to it.
"It's a lucky thing for you, Bill," he observed, while I greedily drank the brandy down, "that I thought of bringing this flask with me this morning. Ethel was against it; she's a total abstainer."
"Except when alcohol is needed medicinally," she interposed in an explanatory tone, "then it is another matter."
I now took a good look at her; she was wearing a short, tweed, tailor-made shooting costume, and carried in her hand a light sixteen bore shot gun.
"You look just about done," continued her brother. "Whatever has happened to you?"
"You would look bad," I answered, "if you had had nothing to eat since lunch yesterday."
St. Nivel was a soldier and man of action.
"Botley," he said to the keeper, "the sandwiches."