other-in-law invested a very ordinary
expletive was quite remarkable.

"Why," he added, sitting upright, "cannot they ring up at a lawful hour?
Why must they----"

The sentence was never finished. With the rush of a whirlwind, Nobby
tore into the room. His delight at having run me to earth was
transformed to ecstasy at encountering unexpectedly another member of
the household, hitherto missing from his tale, and, observing that the
latter's face was a reasonable distance from the ground, and so less
inaccessible than usual, the Sealyham leapt upon the rim of the bath to
offer the lick of greeting which it was his practice to bestow.

The result was inevitable.

Nobby tried to save himself by reaching for Berry's shoulder with his
forepaws, but at the critical moment his buffer flinched, the paws fell
short of their objective, and with a startled grunt the terrier fell
heavily into the bath, his desperate claws leaving two long abrasions
upon his victim's ribs.

The scene that followed baffles description.

Berry began to roar like a wounded bull, while a bedraggled Nobby
scrambled and blew and slipped and scratched, caring not at all what was
his understanding, so long as it provided a foothold and kept his head
above water.

"He thinks I'm a straw!" yelled Berry. "He's catching at me. Don't stand
there like a half-baked corner-boy. Get him _out_!"

But I was helpless with laughter, from which I only recovered in time to
rescue the offender, who, with the bath to himself, was swimming
sturdily in the deep water and scrabbling fruitlessly on the porcelain,
while Berry, in a bath-dressing-gown and a loud voice, identified and
enumerated the several scratches upon his person.

"For Heaven's sake," said I, "go and answer the telephone."

"I shall die," said Berry, slipping his feet into a pair of pumps. "I
shall get pneumonia (bis) and die. I got into that bath in the prime, as
it were, the very heyday of life. And now.... At least, I shall be in
the fashion. 'The body of the deceased bore signs of extreme physical
violence.' Any more for the crime wave?"

I wrapped Nobby in my brother-in-law's towel and followed the latter
downstairs.

My sister was standing in the library's doorway.

"What on earth," she demanded, "has been the matter?"

I held up my hand.

"Listen."

Berry was speaking upon the telephone.

"Is that the Waddell Institute? I am so very sorry--I might almost say
distracted--that you s