Mr. Collop's dress clothes lay beautifully aligned upon a couch, a shirt by the side of them; but the owner's brow clouded as he said:
"Where the devil did I put that flask? Curse them slaveys! I do 'ate 'avin' things done for me on these toff jobs!" He buried his head in the large kit-bag which he had been assured was the proper receptacle or container to bring to the Palaces of the Rich.
And even as he therein delved and groped, with head hidden in the kit-bag, the Angel brought it off!
"Attaboy!" urged the Angel to Hamish. "Slip it into the tail-coat pocket! QUICK!"
And before you could have breathed a silent prayer the Emerald was in the tail-coat pocket of Mr. Collop's evening tail coat, lying there on the couch all innocent.
Up came Mr. Collop's head out of the kit-bag, very red and puffy.
"I thought as much, my 'earty," he said. "Dirty tykes! ... There it was...." And he brought out a gigantic flask holding perhaps a quart of the detestable beverage. The bottom of it was a silver cup fitted to the glass, and inscribed, "In grateful memory of the Bullingdon Burglary, August, 1928" and with the initials B.F. Mr. Collop solemnly half filled the receptacle, smelt it with delicate bonhomie, and handed it to his guest, who sipped it with the resolution in which a man must face whatever torture has to be endured.
"Thank you," said Mr. McTaggart, gasping, from his flayed throat.
"Cheerio!" said the Collop man, and he tossed off all that remained—enough, you would have thought, to have felled an elephant in stupor!—down his own more acclimatized gullet. Then he brought out a large tongue, licked his lips, and smacked them.
"Ah, that's something like!" he said. He put the flask and the silver cup belonging to it down on his table with a happy grunt.