“I have been so worried,” said Lady Lakenheath, “that I have scarcely been able to rest.”
“Too bad!”
“Last night I had a return of my wretched malaria.”
At these words, as if he had been given a cue, Ukridge reached under his chair and produced from his hat, like some conjurer, a bottle that was own brother to the one he had left in my rooms. Even from where I sat I could read those magic words of cheer on its flaunting label.
“Then I’ve got the very stuff for you,” he boomed. “This is what you want. Glowing reports on all sides. Two doses, and cripples fling away their crutches and join the Beauty Chorus.”
“I am scarcely a cripple, Mr. Ukridge,” said Lady Lakenheath, with a return of her earlier bleakness.
“No, no! Good heavens, no! But you can’t go wrong by taking Peppo.”
“Peppo?” said Lady Lakenheath, doubtfully.
“It bucks you up.”
“You think it might do me good?” asked the sufferer, wavering. There was a glitter in her eye that betrayed the hypochondriac, the woman who will try anything once.