"Jack gave it to me."
"Really? Has he got it too? What is it?"
"A car, of course!"
Now this was characteristic of Sallie. I did not even know that she desired a car; probably her brother Jack, who gives her everything but the good advice she so sadly needs, was as ignorant as I. Most likely he had planned the whole thing as a surprise, just as I once gave Sallie a punt as a "surprise," and learned later that for a month previously she had been taking lessons in punting. But that's just Sallie.
"It's so wonderful," Sallie went on to explain. "It does such funny things. Sometimes it barks like a dog—(I shivered, I knew what that meant for the car)—and sometimes it purrs just like Wivvles." Wivvles is a Persian kitten of no manners and less——but Wivvles can wait.
At times Sallie is very trying, although unconsciously. She has a habit of taking the first syllable of her friends' surnames and adding a "y." Windover, for instance, becomes "Winny." Poor Graves, who is very fat and moist, she calls "Gravy," and it hurts him just as it hurts dear old Skillington, who is long and learned, to hear himself referred to as "Skilly." It would, however, hurt them both far more if Sallie were allowed to guess their real feelings.
Having to some extent explained Sallie, I must proceed to tell the story that resulted in her becoming a member of the Night Club.
Bindle had arranged that I should tell the first story, and in honour of Jack Carruthers, who is Dick Little's particular pal, and a foundation member of the Club, I decided to tell how Sallie had once personated an admiral's daughter and what came of it.
I
On coming down to breakfast one June morning I found awaiting me a telegram. It was from Jack Carruthers at Sheerness, and read:—