failing to mind whether Miss Mapp got her contract or not.
Captain Puffin, at the other table, seemed to be behaving with the same
impropriety, for the sound of his shrill, falsetto laugh was as regular
as his visits to the bucket of red-currant fool. What if there was
champagne in it after all, so Miss Mapp luridly conjectured! What if
this unseemly good-humour was due to incipient intoxication? She took a
little more of that delicious decoction herself.

It was unanimously determined, when the two rubbers came to an end
almost simultaneously, that, as everything was so pleasant and
agreeable, there should be no fresh sorting of the players. Besides, the
second table was only playing stakes of sixpence a hundred, and it would
be very awkward and unsettling that anyone should play these moderate
points in one rubber and those high ones the next. But at this point
Miss Mapp's table was obliged to endure a pause, for the Padre had to
hurry away just before six to administer the rite of baptism in the
church which was so conveniently close. The Major afforded a good deal
of amusement, as soon as he was out of hearing, by hoping that he would
not baptize the child the Knave of Hearts if it was a boy, or, if a
girl, the Queen of Spades; but in order to spare the susceptibilities of
Mrs. Bartlett, this admirable joke was not communicated to the next
table, but enjoyed privately. The author of it, however, made a note in
his mind to tell it to Captain Puffin, in the hopes that it would cause
him to forget his ruinous half-crown defeat at golf this morning. Quite
as agreeable was the arrival of a fresh supply of red-currant fool, and
as this had been heralded a few minutes before by a loud pop from the
butler's pantry, which looked on to the lawn, Miss Mapp began to waver
in her belief that there was no champagne in it, particularly as it
would not have suited the theory by which she accounted for the Major's
unwonted good-humour, and her suggestion that the pop they had all heard
so clearly was the opening of a bottle of stone ginger-beer was not
delivered with conviction. To make sure, however, she took one more sip
of the new supply, and, irradiated with smiles, made a great concession.

"I believe I was wrong," she said. "There is something in it beyond yolk
of egg and cream. Oh, there's Boon; he will tell us."

She made a seductive face at Boon, and beckoned to him.

"Boon, will you think it very inquisitive of me," she