"And when they did find out," pursued Mrs. Botley-Markham, clasping her hands--she had finished her quail--"what was it? Tell me, dear Sir Arthur!"
Sir Arthur cogitated for a moment, and then took the plunge.
"It was clavicle," he said solemnly.
Assuming that my friend was labouring under the same disadvantage as myself--namely, inability to decide whether Gipsy was a woman, child, horse, dog, cat, or monkey--to invent a mysterious and non-committal disease upon the spur of the moment struck me as quite a stroke of genius on Dicky's part. Connie would enjoy hearing about this.
"How truly terrible!" said Mrs. Botley-Markham, in an awe-struck voice. "Clam--clavicle is a very rare disease, is it not?"
"Rare and mysterious," replied my friend in the same tone. "In fact, the doctor--"
"You mean Sir Herbert?"
"No, the other blo--the other gentleman--the anæsthetist, you know! He told me that he had never encountered a case of it before."
"How truly terrible!" said Mrs. Botley-Markham again. "And all the time you suspected appendicitis."
The Freak acquiesced readily. Here was light. Gipsy apparently was human--not equine, canine, feline, or simian.