"Humph! Will he be here to-morrow, think?"
"I don't know, but I should think likely he would, in the forenoon, anyhow. He's almost always here in the forenoon; he doesn't get up very early, hardly ever."
"Oh, he doesn't. How about his breakfast?"
Mrs. Macomber looked a bit guilty.
"Well," she admitted, "I usually keep his breakfast hot for him, and—and he has it in his room."
"You take it in to him, I suppose?"
"We-ll, he's always been used to breakfastin' that way, he says. It's the way they do over abroad, accordin' to his tell."
"Oh, Sarah, Sarah!" mused her brother. "To think you could slip so easy on that sort of soft-soap. Tut, tut! I'm surprised.... Well, good-by. Oh, by the way, how about his majesty's board bill? Paid up to date, is it?"
His sister looked even more embarrassed, and, for her, a trifle irritated.
"He owes me for three weeks, if you must know," she said, "but he'll pay it, same as he always does."