P. C. Breagh snarled, knitting the broad red eyebrows so industriously sooted:
"Twice.... There can be no harm in my saying so."
"And how recently?" The grating voice scooped into one's brain like a dentist's burred scraper. P. C. Breagh shook his head, saying:
"I can't tell you that!"
"Why not, if there is no harm in telling?" The voice was almost pleasant. "Was it as recently as three days ago?"
No answer.
"Was it as recently as two days? ... as twenty-four hours? ... Will you not answer for your own sake?"
The stubborn head was shaken resolutely. The Minister's voice said, blandly, persuasively:
"You may, for all you know, be answering for hers!"
There was a stubborn silence. The Chancellor said, with his suave, but warning lisp more perceptible than usual: