ipitous.

Major Flint in his eagerness had put most of his moustache into the
life-giving tumbler, and dried it on his handkerchief.

"After all, it was a most amusing incident," he said. "There was I with
my back turned, waiting for you to give it up, when your bl--wretched
little ball hit my foot. I must remember that. I'll serve you with the
same spoon some day, at least I would if I thought it sportsmanlike.
Well, well, enough said. Astonishing good whisky, that of yours."

Captain Puffin helped himself to rather more than half of what now
remained in the flask.

"Help yourself, Major," he said.

"Well, thank ye, I don't mind if I do," he said, reversing the flask
over the tumbler. "There's a good tramp in front of us now that the last
tram has gone. Tram and tramp! Upon my word, I've half a mind to
telephone for a taxi."

This, of course, was a direct hint. Puffin ought clearly to pay for a
taxi, having won two half-crowns to-day. This casual drink did not
constitute the usual drink stood by the winner, and paid for with cash
over the counter. A drink (or two) from a flask was not the same
thing.... Puffin naturally saw it in another light. He had paid for the
whisky which Major Flint had drunk (or owed for it) in his
wine-merchant's bill. That was money just as much as a florin pushed
across the counter. But he was so excessively pleased with himself over
the adroitness with which he had claimed the last hole, that he quite
overstepped the bounds of his habitual parsimony.

"Well, you trot along to the telephone and order a taxi," he said, "and
I'll pay for it."

"Done with you," said the other.

Their comradeship was now on its most felicitous level again, and they
sat on the bench outside the club-house till the arrival of their
unusual conveyance.

"Lunching at the Poppits' to-morrow?" asked Major Flint.

"Yes. Meet you there? Good. Bridge afterwards, suppose."

"Sure to be. Wish there was a chance of more red-currant fool. That was
a decent tipple, all but the red-currants. If I had had all the old
brandy that was served for my ration in one glass, and all the champagne
in another, I should have been better content."

Captain Puffin was a great cynic in his own misogynistic way.

"Camouflage for the fair sex," he said. "A woman will lick up half a
bottle of brandy if it's called plum-pudding, and ask for more, whereas
if you offered her a small brandy and soda, she would think you were
insult