"Fourteen point eight," he said promptly.
"I beg your pardon?" replied Mrs. Botley-Markham.
"Fourteen point eight cubic centimetres," repeated The Freak in a firm voice. "That is the metric system of weights and measures. It is the only accurate and scientific method. All the big doctors have taken to it, you will find. I never allow any other to be employed where Gwladys is concerned. I strongly advise you," he added earnestly, "to have Babs weighed in the same manner. Everybody's doing it now," he concluded lyrically.
Mrs. Botley-Markham quivered with pleasure. An opportunity of getting ahead of the fashion does not occur to us every day.
"I will certainly take your advice, dear Sir Arthur," she replied. "Tell me, where does one get it done?"
"At the British Museum, between seven and eight in the morning," replied The Freak, whose pheasant was growing cold. "And now, dear lady, tell me everything that you have been doing lately."
Mrs. Botley-Markham, being nothing loath, launched forth. She even found time to re-include me in the conversation, disturbing my meditations upon the strenuous awakening which awaited poor Babs upon the morrow with an enquiry as to whether my canal was to contain salt water or fresh. But she had not finished with Dicky yet. Suddenly she turned upon him, and remarked point-blank:--
"How pleased the Stantons will be!"
"Indeed, yes!" replied The Freak enthusiastically.
At the sound of his voice I trembled. We had reached the dessert, and with port in sight, so to speak, it was impossible to tell what foolishness he might not commit.