"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."
"All of them?" she asked anxiously.
"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said cautiously. "May I go? I'll send the servant to sit with you——"
Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand, exclaiming, "No, no—don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . . Look here, you're a very decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you—will you play the game when you go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes? The blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . . Oh, confound . . . I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot you . . . but if you could not mention it . . ."
Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain. Eloquent divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss Buttermish disappeared—a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and shivering.
In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the corner.
He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and covered the boy with it. As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve, saying curiously—"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really stuffy about it?"
Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.
The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.
"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion. Who shall I ask for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"
"Oh take them with you—could you? Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to put them in their rooms—the furs are granny's. He'll do it and never say a word; decent old chap, Fusby. I say, I'm awfully sorry to be such a nuisance. I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."