“Here, no-ball! That’s a chuck!” cried Charlie. “I’ll have Jim Phillips to you, Grace. You don’t give the poor chap a chance.”
“Charlie, if you’re rude you’ll get no fizz.”
Miss Grace foraged in the hamper and produced two bottles of that giddy liquid. She promptly began to unwire them, too. Disdaining our earnest and repeated offers to withdraw the corks, she pulled them out herself with considerable ease and neatness, saying,—
“’Daren’t trust you men with this. I’ll measure it myself, then all of us will get a share. Hands down, Charlie. Oh, yes, I know being a bowler’s beastly thirsty; thank you so much for reminding me. Look alive, Mr. Dimsdale, with those glasses. You’ll find ’em wrapped up in the Sporting Life.”
“She means The Woman at Home, in Annie S. Swan’s grand new serial,” said the little parson, with something that bore a perilous resemblance to a common wink.
“Go on, pile it up!” The voice of Miss Grace was more indignant than the hissing of the fizz. “And, Toddles, I saw you. Oh, you naughty little curate. You’d better be careful, Toddles, or I won’t work that sweater for you. Pass that to Cheery. Don’t drink it yet. I’ve got to propose a toast.”
When we were all furnished with a means to honour it, our hostess insisted on our standing up along with her, whereon she held the glass aloft, and cried in a voice pregnant with emotion:
“Here’s luck to good old Stoddy in the autumn!”
We pledged him with great fervour.
“I say, you men,” said Grace. “That went well, didn’t it? And I say, isn’t this stuff just prime. My old guv’nor knows a thing or two. And what price the Bishop and the Rural Dean? It’s positive extravagance in my old guv’nor to lavish it on those old jossers. But they look like being left, eh? Next time they’ll get the other sort, and that’ll sour their ‘outlook,’ and their preaching won’t be quite so full of hope. But we’d better finish it now it’s here. Fill up, and we’ll drink another.”