"So she did. I had forgotten. Two and nine, wasn't it?"
Stiffy, with a five-pound-note crackling in his pocket, merely gaped.
"Then," continued Nicky, calculating on her fingers, "there is the three and a penny which we got out of the missionary-box. That makes five and tenpence. And there is that shilling that slipped down into your boot, Stiffy. You can easily get under the table and take it off. Six and tenpence. I have elevenpence in stamps, and that, with the threepenny-bit we picked up off the floor of the bus, makes eight shillings. We can just do it. Thank you," she intimated to the waiter with a seraphic smile—"we will take table d'hôte. I suppose," she added wistfully, "there would be no reduction if I took my little boy on my knee?"
"None, madam."
And the waiter, still unshaken, departed to bring the hors d'œuvres.
"Nicky, don't play the goat!" urged the respectable Stephen in a low and agitated voice. "That blighter really believes we are going to pay him in stamps. We shall get flung out, for a cert!"
"It's all right," said Nicky. "I am only going to try and make him laugh."
"You'll fail," said her brother with conviction.
At this moment a mighty tray, covered with such inducements to appetite as anchovies, sliced tomatoes, sardines, radishes, chopped celery, Strasburg sausage, et hoc genus omne—all equally superfluous in the case of a schoolboy up in town on an exeat—was laid before him with a stately flourish. Then the waiter came stiffly and grimly to attention, and stood obviously expectant. Hors d'œuvres are rather puzzling things. Here was a chance for the tyros before him to show their mettle.
They showed it.