"Telling that butler to come in here and watch the presents."
"But, good heavens, don't you realise that, if I hadn't told him, some one might have sneaked in and stolen something?"
Mr. Waddington's expression was now that of a cow-boy who, leaping into bed, discovers too late that a frolicsome friend has placed a cactus between the sheets: and George, at the lowest ebb, was about to pass on to the refreshment-table and see if a little potato-salad might not act as a restorative, when there stepped from the crowd gathered round the food a large and ornately dressed person chewing the remains of a slab of caviare on toast. George had a dim recollection of having seen him among the guests at that first dinner-party at Number 16, East Seventy-Ninth Street. His memory had not erred. The new-comer was no less a man than United Beef.
"Hello there, Waddington," said United Beef.
"Ur," said Sigsbee Horatio. He did not like the other, who had once refused to lend him money and—what was more—had gone to the mean length of quoting Shakespeare to support his refusal.
"Say, Waddington," proceeded United Beef, "don't I seem to remember you coming to me sometime ago and asking about that motion-picture company, the Finer and Better? You were thinking of putting some money in, if I recollect?"
An expression of acute alarm shot into Mr. Waddington's face. He gulped painfully.
"Not me," he said hastily. "Not me. Get it out of your nut that it was I who wanted to buy the stuff. I just thought that if the stock was any good my dear wife might be interested."
"Same thing."
"It is not at all the same thing."