Unfortunately this mystery was never cleared up, as Blithers returned to the family circle and was busily engaged in feeding Jacob on chocolate creams, which the faithful animal, to employ a euphemism, soon contrived to unswallow in a secluded portion of the meadow.
As I turned to help Mrs. Accrington, who was most usefully employed in showing an awkward squad how to wash dishes, a voice behind me murmured,
‘Oh, Mr. Cochrane, please take me somewhere and give me a cigarette, I simply daren’t smoke before the Dowager.’
Personally I always affect a certain brand of leaf-covered invention known to the trade as cigarillos, but I obtained a supply of thin gold-tipped cigarettes from Reggie, who always keeps a selection of strange apparatus in his cigarette-case.
As we climbed over a gate and sat down behind the nearest hedge Mrs. Lomond remarked, ‘Good boy, Reggie, I met him when I was out at Cannes for the Ladies golf matches; he did everything for me except sign my card.’
‘He’s a born organizer,’ I said; ‘the anti-dons campaign that he arranged in Cecil’s prospered as no such enterprise has ever done before, and he doped the porter so successfully that the only name found on his black book next morning was that of an inoffensive Scholar who was visiting a sick aunt in Penzance.’
‘I wish,’ she said, ‘that you and he would come up to town next week, and help me run our theatricals at the “Regality” in aid of the “Home for Helpless Hairdressers;” it’s bound to be a great success, the Duke is coming at half-time, and I’ll introduce you to some of the prettiest girls. If you like to wear an apron and carry a shaving brush in your hand you might even sell programmes,’ she added with the air of one who makes a great concession.
‘That’s all right for me,’ I put in, ‘but don’t you think that Reggie’s heart is full enough already, and yet stay,’ I added, ‘there is still room for a few more in bin twenty-three.’
‘How much do you expect to clear,’ I asked her after a short pause.