“Shake hands, gentlemen,” said Bowen facetiously, and Peet giggled.
“Oh, cut out the comedy stuff,” growled Longley. “Now then, you Little Lord Fauntleroy, where’ll you have it?”
Some twenty minutes later, Bert, laboriously trying to get out of his coat-sweater without hurting the damaged rib, heard the study door open and close quietly.
“That you, Hugh?” he asked.
“Yes,” was the quiet reply. But Hugh didn’t appear at the doorway. Instead he crossed to his own bedroom and Bert heard him pouring water into the bowl.
“What are you so select for?” Bert sang out. “Aren’t you speaking to your friends today?”
There was no audible reply from 29a, and having got rid of the sweater at the cost of a few twinges, Bert sauntered across the study to Hugh’s doorway. Then:
“For—the—love—of—Mike!” whispered Bert awedly. “Where’d you get it?”
Hugh, looking up from his task of applying a wet sponge to a disfigured countenance, smiled painfully.