“Well, let’s have a game of nap.”
“Oh, Lord, no,” said Hargreaves. “I only play nap on the way to a race. You don’t sport a billiard table, do you?”
Herbert Heywood was embarrassed.
“Er—a billiard table?” He looked round the room as though he might discover a billiard table. “I’m afraid not.”
“Don’t be absurd, Edward,” said Mrs. Hargreaves. “People don’t play billiards on the wrong side of the river.”
Conversation languished again, and Herbert was becoming desperate. He seized upon the sandwiches and handed them round.
“Won’t anybody have a sandwich to pass the time away? Mrs. Hargreaves?”
Mrs. Hargreaves laughed in her supercilious way.
“It’s rather early, isn’t it?”
“Good Lord, no!” said Herbert. “I am sure you must be hungry. Let me beg of you—Mother, haven’t you got any cake anywhere?”