“I don’t know that she could have done much better,” snorted Mrs. Flippance.
“But fancy Polly being wasted on a man who packs for himself! Another glass, Bundock?”
“Not while I’m on the Queen’s business, thank you,” said the postman.
“But you’re not. Aren’t your letters delivered?”
“What about your telegram?”
“True, true. O Bundock, what a sense of duty! You recall us to ours. We must drink to the Queen! The Queen, ladies and gentlemen——” he filled up Bundock’s glass.
“I can’t refuse to drink that,” sniggered Bundock. “Wonderful what one day’s round can bring forth!” he said, putting down his glass. “I began with a baby—I mean the midwife told me of one—went on to a corpse—and now here am I at a wedding! It’s in a cottage by the holly-grove—the corpse, I mean——”
“We don’t want the skeleton at the feast,” interrupted Tony. Bundock hastened to turn the conversation to the grand new house Elijah Skindle was building—Rosemary Villa.
Blanche pouted her beautiful lips in disgust: “Don’t talk of a knacker—that’s worse than a corpse.”
But Bundock was anxious to work off that Elijah called his house “Rosemary Villa” because rosemary was good for the hair, and having achieved this stroke, prudently departed before the laughter died. Blanche seemed especially taken with his gibe at that poor grotesque Mr. Skindle.