“Well?” said Dolly as he entered.
“Well!” said Edward. “He wasn’t very polite, but—but—are you quite sure that you weren’t worried when you saw him on Tuesday?”
“Worried,” said Dolly, “I should think I was!”
“Well that’s what I mean,” said Edward a little uneasily. “Didn’t you ... didn’t you perhaps exaggerate a little?”
“Exaggerate!” said Dolly, jumping up with all his youthful vigour, and looking for the moment less than forty-eight in his excitement, “Why man alive, he was wearing a huge great Easter Lily in his buttonhole, and he tried to wrestle with the butler in the hall!”
“Yes, but you know,” said Edward, “there’s gaiety in everybody, and it comes out now and——”
“Oh gaiety be blasted!” interrupted Dolly. “The man was raving!”
“Well, they wouldn’t certify him anyhow,” said Edward, “and he’s not raving now! He’s as sane as a waxen image, and as sharp as an unexpected pin. I’m glad I’m not doing business with him to-day.”
“Look here,” protested the Prime Minister. “If he wasn’t off, why did he stay at home like a prisoner all Wednesday, with Lady Repton preventing any one seeing him? And what was he doing all yesterday, Thursday? Why didn’t he come down to the House, eh, if he wasn’t off?”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t ill,” said Edward blandly. “I only said there might have been some exaggeration.”