“Who’s to snatch at that feather, Gracie, you or I? I suppose it is yours.”
“Hallo, here’s Meryon! I’m due on the boards.”
“Miss Abercorn, I desire you to come and act as time-keeper, and to hold the stakes.”
Percival Kex won his six insurance stamps without much difficulty. Parallax made his oration, and when the audience had dispersed, he became the immediate victim of Mrs. Canterton’s enthusiasms. They paraded the grounds together, Parallax polite, stiff, and full of a disastrous disgust; Gertrude Canterton earnestly vivadous, poking her chin at him, and exerting all her public charm. Parallax was considered to be a great personality, and she insisted upon his being interesting and serious, giving him every opportunity to be brilliant upon such subjects as Welsh Disestablishment, the inadequacy of the Navy, and the importation of pork from China. She kept him for more than an hour, introduced him to numberless honest souls who were content with a shake of the hand, insinuated in every way that she knew that he was a very great man, but never suspected that he wanted to play croquet.
Parallax detached himself at last, and found Kex and Miss Abercorn having tea under the lime tree in that secluded corner where none of the Leaguers penetrated.
“By George, Kex, I’ve never been taken so seriously in my life! Let me see—where am I? I think I got bogged in Tariff Reform.”
“We thought we would come and have tea, Parallax. We saw you were too occupied.”
“Kex, you are an old scoundrel. Why didn’t you rescue me when you had won your bet?”
“Sir, I am not a hero.”
“Is there a whisky and soda to be had? Oh, here’s a servant. Bring me a whisky and soda, will you?”