“So there was here,” said Milton, mournfully. “Gallons.”
There was silence for a while, each pondering over his wrongs.
“Gallons,” said Milton again. “I was ass enough to keep a large pot full of it here, and they used it all, every drop. You never saw such a sight.”
Trevor said he had seen one similar spectacle.
“And my photographs! You remember those photographs I showed you? All ruined. Slit across with a knife. Some torn in half. I wish I knew who did that.”
Trevor said he wished so, too.
“There was one of Mrs Patrick Campbell,” Milton continued in heartrending tones, “which was torn into sixteen pieces. I counted them. There they are on the mantelpiece. And there was one of Little Tich” (here he almost broke down), “which was so covered with ink that for half an hour I couldn’t recognise it. Fact.”
Trevor nodded sympathetically.
“Yes,” said Milton. “Soaked.”
There was another silence. Trevor felt it would be almost an outrage to discuss so prosaic a topic as the date of a house-match with one so broken up. Yet time was flying, and lock-up was drawing near.