“I certainly have not.”
“Dear me,” sighed my interlocutor. He stabbed the ground with his umbrella, leaned upon it with both hands, large, red, bloated hands, nervously twitching fat fingers. “And finally, did you notice whether any snakes—”
I was growing exasperated, whether or not this soi-disant MacWilloughby was making merry at my expense.
“Don’t you know,” I asked harshly, “that there are no snakes in Radnorshire?”
“But these were from my menagerie. Dear me, my menagerie will be dreadfully depleted, I fear. You didn’t—?”
“Look here,” I exploded; “have you a Bull of Bashan on your list? If you have, your bull’s dead—I can tell you so much. With the exception of a cave-man who was running up the path there, every animal I’ve seen has been indigenous.”
“But snakes—from my menagerie,” he protested mildly, ignoring my tone. He indicated with the umbrella and his free hand, for a pencil of moonlight from rifted clouds had caused us both to stow away our torches. “Snakes about so long.”
“No, no!”
He shrugged disappointedly. “Well! if it must be. Then you will tell me, please, which of these hills”—he included them all with a sweep of the umbrella—“is called Kerry Hill?”
“Why, none of them. Kerry Hill is outside this county, thirty miles away.”