Mr. Milligan was annoyed at the interruption, but, like many of his nation, if he had a weak point, it was the British aristocracy. He postponed for a few minutes the elimination from the map of a modest but promising farm, and directed that the visitor should be shown up.
«Good-afternoon,» said that nobleman, ambling genially in, «it's most uncommonly good of you to let me come round wastin' your time like this. I'll try not to be too long about it, though I'm not awfully good at comin' to the point. My brother never would let me stand for the county, y'know — said I wandered on so nobody'd know what I was talkin' about.»
«Pleased to meet you, Lord Wimsey,» said Mr. Milligan. «Won't you take a seat?»
«Thanks,» said Lord Peter, «but I'm not the Duke, you know — that's my brother Denver. My name's Peter. It's a silly name, I always think, so old-world and full of homely virtue and that sort of thing, but my godfathers and godmothers in my baptism are responsible for that, I suppose, officially — which is rather hard on them, you know, as they didn't actually choose it. But we always have a Peter, after the third duke, who betrayed five kings somewhere about the Wars of the Roses, though come to think of it, it ain't anything to be proud of. Still, one has to make the best of it.»
Mr. Milligan, thus ingeniously placed at that disadvantage which attends ignorance, maneuvred for position, and offered his interrupter a Corona Corona.
«Thanks, awfully,» said Lord Peter, «though you really mustn't tempt me to stay here barblin' all afternoon. By Jove, Mr. Milligan, if you offer people such comfortable chairs and cigars like these, I wonder they don't come an' live in your office.» He added mentally: «I wish to goodness I could get those long-toed boots off you. How's a man to know the size of your feet? And a head like a potato. It's enough to make one swear.»
«Say now, Lord Peter,» said Mr. Milligan, «can I do anything for you?»
«Well, d'you know,» said Lord Peter, «I'm wonderin' if you would. It's damned cheek to ask you, but fact is, it's my mother, you know. Wonderful woman, but don't realize what it means, demands on the time of a busy man like you. We don't understand hustle over here, you know, Mr. Milligan.»
«Now don't you mention that,» said Mr. Milligan; «I'd be surely charmed to do anything to oblige the Duchess.»
He felt a momentary qualm as to whether a duke's mother were also a duchess, but breathed more freely as Lord Peter went on: