‘So they have turned it into a game now, have they?’ cried Mr. Femm, in his thin, bitter voice. ‘It was high time they did.’
Sir William looked puzzled. ‘Don’t seem to know it, and don’t like the sound of it. How d’you play it? Hope it isn’t one of those games that make you use paper and pencil, like so many kids at school. If it is, you can count me out. I hate ’em.’
‘So do I,’ cried Gladys. ‘Is it one of them?’
‘It’s the simplest game in the world,’ Penderel explained. ‘Indeed you can hardly call it a game. We just go on talking but we stop lying. We simply ask one another questions, and these questions must be answered truthfully. You have to be on your honour to answer as truthfully as you can.’
‘My God!’ Gladys couldn’t help it, but she stopped short and then said ‘Sorry!’
‘This doesn’t seem to be your game, Gladys,’ Sir William told her. ‘You’d better keep out.’
She shook her head very decisively. ‘Not me. I’m on. It’ll be a nice change for some of us, you particularly, Bill. But somebody wants to be easy with the questions, or God knows what we shall hear.’ She darted a glance across the table at Margaret to see how she was taking it. Not too well apparently. Serve her right.
‘You two are in?’ Penderel looked at the Wavertons and they nodded. ‘We’re all in, then. Now, don’t forget, you’re bound to answer as truthfully as you can. Get down to the stony facts.’
‘When you think of it,’ Philip growled, looking down into his pipe, ‘the very existence of this pastime, with its one rule about answering truthfully, is an awful comment on society.’
Mr. Femm stared at him. ‘But what do you expect?’