eing introduced to a strange chappie, and Wally
Mason, giving it an absolute miss, went on talking to me just as if we
were alone, you know. Look here. Here was I, where this knife is.
Derek over here--this fork--with his hand out. Mason here--this bit of
bread. Mason looks at his watch, and says 'I'm sorry, Freddie, but I
find I've an engagement for lunch. So long!' and biffed out, without
apparently knowing that Derek was on the earth. I mean...." Freddie
reached for his glass. "What I mean is, it was dashed embarrassing. I
mean, cutting a fellow dead in my rooms. I don't know when I've felt
so rotten!"

Algy Martyn delivered judgment with great firmness.

"Chappie was perfectly right!"

"No, but I mean...."

"Absolutely correct-o," insisted Algy sternly. "Underhill can't dash
about all over the place giving the girl he's engaged to the mitten
because she's broke, and expect no notice to be taken of it. If you
want to know what I think, old man, your pal Underhill--I can't
imagine what the deuce you see in him, but, school together and so
forth, makes a difference, I suppose--I say, if you want to know what
I think, Freddie, the blighter Underhill would be well advised either
to leg it after Jill and get her to marry him or else lie low for a
goodish while till people have forgotten the thing. I mean to say,
fellows like Ronny and I and Dick Wimpole and Archie Studd and the
rest of our lot--well, we all knew Jill and thought she was a topper
and had danced with her here and there and seen her about and all
that, and naturally we feel pretty strongly about the whole dashed
business. Underhill isn't in our particular set, but we all know most
of the people he knows, and we talk about this business, and the thing
gets about, and there you are! My sister, who was a great pal of
Jill's, swears that all the girls she knows mean to cut Underhill. I
tell you, Freddie, London's going to get pretty hot for him if he
doesn't do something dashed quick and with great rapidity!"

"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"

"How not?"

"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think
that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't
that at all."

"What was it, then?"

"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful ass and all
that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those
streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."