"I'm along."
He laughed. It was rude of him.
"You!" he said. "Madge, tell me honestly—where was the key?"
"She put it down my back."
He fairly howled with joy. I hated him. But he calmed before long, and offered me a cigarette as a peace offering. I declined.
"You'd better go along," he said. "She may need the—back again. Madge, is there any chance for me with her?"
"Well, she likes you, when you are not in the way."
"I'd be in the way now, I suppose, if I turned up to-night at—where do you stop?"
"At Torquay. Look here, Vivian, I've just thought of something. She's put out about a thing a man said yesterday. She wants an answer. She's got arguments, but what she wants is a retort—about six words and smart. If you could give her one, she'd probably forgive you hanging around, and all that."
So I told him about the ten commandments and Poppy knowing she'd get it again and sitting up to worry it out. He said it was easy. He'd have something to break his appearance at Torquay. But it wasn't as easy as it seemed at first. I left him sitting there, looking out to sea, with a notebook on his knee. He called after me that he'd follow us, a few miles behind, but he wouldn't turn up until he had thought of something worth while.