He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble, who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.
"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in the Parish Hall. In aid of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."
"Joey's latest, I suppose?"
"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant Hildegard, in an attitude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"
Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,—
"But I did it all at the Rectory, mummy."
"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.
"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.
"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.
"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs. Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.