“Oh, yes, I’ve arrived. Yes, here I am. I say, I seem to have plunged into the middle of quite a young dinner-party. Who are all these coves?”
“Oh, just people from round about. You know most of them. You remember Colonel Willis, and the Spencers——”
“Of course, yes. And there’s old Heppenstall. Who’s the other clergyman next to Mrs. Spencer?”
“Mr. Hayward, from Lower Bingley.”
“What an amazing lot of clergymen there are round here. Why, there’s another, next to Mrs. Willis.”
“That’s Mr. Bates, Mr. Heppenstall’s nephew. He’s an assistant-master at Eton. He’s down here during the summer holidays, acting as locum tenens for Mr. Spettigue, the rector of Gandle-by-the-Hill.”
“I thought I knew his face. He was in his fourth year at Oxford when I was a fresher. Rather a blood. Got his rowing-blue and all that.” I took another look round the table, and spotted young Bingo. “Ah, there he is,” I said. “There’s the old egg.”
“There’s who?”
“Young Bingo Little. Great pal of mine. He’s tutoring your brother, you know.”
“Good gracious! Is he a friend of yours?”