“Oh, ah!” Ginger blushed. “And then there was all that about the soup, you know.”
“How do you mean, 'all that about the soup'? What about the soup? What soup?”
“Well, things sort of hotted up a bit when the soup arrived.”
“I don't understand.”
“I mean, the trouble seemed to start, as it were, when the waiter had finished ladling out the mulligatawny. Thick soup, you know.”
“I know mulligatawny is a thick soup. Yes?”
“Well, my old uncle—I'm not blaming him, don't you know—more his misfortune than his fault—I can see that now—but he's got a heavy moustache. Like a walrus, rather, and he's a bit apt to inhale the stuff through it. And I—well, I asked him not to. It was just a suggestion, you know. He cut up fairly rough, and by the time the fish came round we were more or less down on the mat chewing holes in one another. My fault, probably. I wasn't feeling particularly well-disposed towards the Family that night. I'd just had a talk with Bruce—my cousin, you know—in Piccadilly, and that had rather got the wind up me. Bruce always seems to get on my nerves a bit somehow and—Uncle Donald asking me to dinner and all that. By the way, did you get the books?”
“What books?”
“Bruce said he wanted to send you some books. That was why I gave him your address.” Sally stared.
“He never sent me any books.”