“Do! Don’t you know?”
Billy in all truth did not.
“Phew!” went Bertie. “Well, I don’t, either. Didn’t see it. Saw the consequences, though. Don’t you remember being ready to apologize? What do you remember, anyhow?”
Billy consulted his recollections with care: they seemed to break off at the champagne. That was early. Bertie was astonished. Did not Billy remember singing “Brace up and dress the Countess,” and “A noble lord the Earl of Leicester”? He had sung them quite in his usual manner, conversing freely between whiles. In fact, to see and hear him, no one would have suspected—“It must have been that extra silver-fizz you took before dinner,” said Bertie. “Yes,” said Billy; “that’s what it must have been.” Bertie supplied the gap in his memory,—a matter of several hours, it seemed. During most of this time Billy had met the demands of each moment quite like his usual agreeable self—a sleep-walking state. It was only when the hair incident was reached that his conduct had noticeably crossed the line. He listened to all this with interest intense.
“John does owe me ten, I think,” said he.
“I say so,” declared Bertie. “When do you begin to remember again?”
“After I got in again at the gate. Why did I get out?”
“You fell out, man.”
Billy was incredulous.
“You did. You tore your clothes wide open.”