"Yes?" said John.
"You don't seem much surprised," said Hugo, disappointed.
"Oh, I'm astonished," said John. "How did it happen?"
Hugo, who had released his companion's coat sleeve, now reached out for it again. The feel of it seemed to inspire him.
"It was that bloke Bessemer's wedding that started the whole trouble," he said. "You remember I told you about Ronnie's man, Bessemer."
"I remember you said he had remarkable ears."
"Like airplane wings. Nevertheless, in spite of that, he got married yesterday. The wedding took place from Ronnie's flat."
"Yes?"
Hugo sighed.
"Well, you know how it is, John, old man. There's something about a wedding, even the wedding of a gargoyle like Bessemer, that seems to breed sentimentality. It may have been the claret cup. I warned Ronnie from the first against the claret cup. A noxious drink. But he said—with a good deal of truth, no doubt—that if I thought he was going to waste champagne on a blighter who was leaving him in the lurch without a tear I was jolly well mistaken. So we more or less bathed in claret cup at the subsequent festivities, and it wasn't more than an hour afterward when something seemed to come over me all in a rush."