"How the devil did you get here?" were his opening words of welcome. His scarlet face vanished for an instant into the folds of a large handkerchief; then reappeared, wearing a look of acute concern. "You didn't," he quavered, "come in the Dex-Mayo?"
A thought to shake the sturdiest man. It was twenty miles from Rudge Hall to Healthward Ho, and twenty miles back again from Healthward Ho to Rudge Hall. The Dex-Mayo, that voracious car, consumed a gallon of petrol for every ten miles it covered. And for a gallon of petrol they extorted from you nowadays the hideous sum of one shilling and sixpence halfpenny. Forty miles, accordingly, meant—not including oil, wear and tear of engines, and depreciation of tires—a loss to his purse of over six shillings—a heavy price to pay for the society of a nephew whom he had disliked since boyhood.
"No, no," said Hugo hastily. "I borrowed John's two-seater,"
"Oh," said Mr. Carmody, relieved.
There was a pause, employed by Mr. Carmody in puffing; by Hugo in trying to think of something to say that would be soothing, tactful, ingratiating, and calculated to bring home the bacon. He turned over in his mind one or two conversational gambits.
("Well, Uncle, you look very rosy."
Not quite right.
"I say, Uncle what ho the School-Girl Complexion?"
Absolutely no! The wrong tone altogether.
Ah! That was more like it. "Fit." Yes, that was the word.)