“Why, it’s Bass,” cried Hooper.
“It was Pritchard,” said Pyecroft. “They can’t resist him.”
“That’s not so,” said Pritchard, mildly.
“Not verbatim per’aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing.”
“Where was it?” I demanded.
“Just on beyond here—at Kalk Bay. She was slappin’ a rug in a back verandah. Pritch hadn’t more than brought his batteries to bear, before she stepped indoors an’ sent it flyin’ over the wall.”
Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
“It was all a mistake,” said Pritchard. “I shouldn’t wonder if she mistook me for Maclean. We’re about of a size.”
I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James’s, and Kalk Bay complain of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
“It’s the uniform that fetches ’em, an’ they fetch it,” said Pyecroft. “My simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin’. Now Pritch in ’is Number One rig is always ‘purr Mary, on the terrace’—ex officio as you might say.”