“It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was that I wasn’t invited. How did it go off?”
“Splendidly. Freddie’s engaged!”
Wally lowered his coffee cup.
“Engaged! You don’t mean what is sometimes slangily called bethrothed?”
“I do. He’s engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her ‘What ho!’ and she said ‘You bet!’ and Freddie said ‘Pip pip!’ and the thing was settled.” Jill bubbled. “Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with her!”
“No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?”
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. Nelly is domestic. She’s going to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and pigs.”
“‘Father’s in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat,’ eh?”
“Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her parrot.”
Wally’s cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of Freddie’s enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with his own. A little home in the country … Oh, well!