"Couldn't you, Theodore?"
"If I did, my love, he would probably refuse to go unless I put him out by force, which, as you are aware, is entirely contrary to my principles."
"I was forgetting for the moment, Theodore. Never mind; I'll go myself."
She had not been long gone before a burly stranger entered unceremoniously by the study window. "'Scuse me, guv'nor," he said, "but ain't you the party whose name I read in the paper—'im what swore 'e wouldn' lift 'is finger not to save 'is own mother from a 'Un?"
"I am," replied Mr. Plapp complacently. "I disbelieve in meeting violence by violence."
"Ah, if there was more blokes like you, Guv'nor, this world 'ud be a better plice, for some on us. Blagg, my name is. Us perfeshnals ain't bin very busy doorin' this War, feelin' it wasn't the square thing, like, to break into 'omes as might 'ave members away fightin' fer our rights and property. But I reckon I ain't doin' nothink unpatriotic in comin' 'ere. So jest you show me where you keeps yer silver."
"The little we possess," said Mr. Plapp, rising, "is on the sideboard in the dining-room. If you will excuse me for a moment I'll go in and get it for you."
"And lock me in 'ere while you ring up the slops!" retorted Mr. Blagg. "You don't go in not without me, you don't; and, unless you want a bullet through yer 'ed, you'd better make no noise neither!"
No one could possibly have made less noise than Mr. Theodore Plapp, as, with the muzzle of his visitor's revolver pressed between his shoulder-blades, he hospitably led the way to the dining-room. There Mr. Blagg, with his back to the open door, superintended the packing of the plate in a bag he had brought for the purpose.
"And now," said Mr. Plapp, as he put in the final fork, "there is nothing to detain you here any longer, unless I may offer you a glass of barley-water and a plasmon biscuit before you go?"