“We’ve been sadly put about,” said Miss Lindsay as he arrived, “groomed to a hair.” “Our party was made up, fitting oh! so nicely. I had my old man and my old lady, and the man who can talk opera, and the girl who can talk Tennyson, and my M. P. who can talk politics. I had the agricultural element and the lawn-tennis element, and a man who can talk across the table, and the man who knows everything—yourself—and lo! a wicked fairy bon gré mal gré adds two unexpected guests to my party by a wave of her wand, and spoils it. Isn’t it awful?” cries the hostess piteously, elevating a superb bouquet to her dainty nose.
“What did she give you?”
“Only fancy—two Irish people!”
“This is ironical of destiny,” laughed Percival.
“I won’t know what to say to them, what to do with them. I want you to stand in the gap, Mr. Percival, to see me through this miserable contretemps.”
“Put me down for anything, from the Annals of the Four Masters to dancing an Irish jig. I haven’t the faintest idea who the Four Masters are, and I’ve never seen the jig danced, but ’shure I’ll troy,’” endeavoring to imitate the Irish brogue, and failing dismally, as does every cockney rash enough to venture upon the experiment.
“I’ve never seen these people. I called at their hotel yesterday, but they were out doing St. Paul’s, or the Tower, or the Houses of Parliament, or the Thames Tunnel, as is the habit of tourists proper.”
“How did you drop into this trap, Miss Lindsay?”
“This wise: My uncle, Sir Winifred, spent some weeks last autumn with them in Ireland. He is a man who is ever anxious to repay a courtesy twofold.”
“I wonder, if I lent him ten sovereigns, would he return me twenty?” laughed Percival.