Jinny was puzzled. “To your wife, do you mean? I thought she was dead.”
Tony roared with laughter. “You little country mouse! And yet you’re right. The legitimate is the missus I should never have left—the drama with a big D. I don’t mean the drama with swear words—ha, ha, ha! but the real live article. You see, Duke and me, we’ve agreed to swop back.”
“What for?”
“What for? Why, that’s just the trouble. For a consideration, says that son of a horse-leech. And I say that’s blood-sucking. Good idea! Why shouldn’t you be arbitrator?”
The word, which was unfortunately absent from the Spelling-Book, suggested nothing to her but being hanged, drawn, and quartered, like a rebel whom Gran’fer had once seen executed. But she was afraid of being again set down as a country mouse, so she replied cautiously: “I haven’t the time!”
“Oh, I’ll pay you your time. Yes, you’d be the ideal arbitrator,” cried Mr. Flippance, catching fire at his own idea. “To begin with, you know nothing about it. So that’s settled, and you shall drive me to Duke’s caravan this very morning.”
“Not if I have to wait for your drink.”
“The way you drive a man not to drink is awful,” he groaned. “Never mind. I’ve got cool again. Talking to you is as good as a drink. Guardian angel!” He squeezed her horn.
“You see,” he narrated, as they drove townwards, “Duke turned up here with the Flippance Fit-Up on Saturday night, and struck an awful frost.”
“So he told me,” said Jinny. “I met him yesterday when I came out of chapel, and I told him what a roaring trade you were doing.”