"Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting."
Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host had arrived.
"Hullo!"
"A quick bracer," said Algy Martyn, "and then the jolly old food-stuffs. It's pretty late, I see. Didn't notice how time was slipping."
Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely, so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.
"Pipped?" enquired Algy solicitously.
"Pretty pipped," admitted Freddie.
"Backed a loser?"
"No."
"Something wrong with the old tum?"