Aunt Dahlia was drinking something that smelled like a leak in the gas-pipe, and I thought for a moment that it was that that made her twist up a face. But I was wrong.

“Don’t mention that woman to me, Bertie!” she said. “One of the worst.”

“But I thought you were rather pally.”

“No longer. Will you credit it that she positively refuses to let me have that article⁠—”

“What!”

“⁠—purely and simply on account of some fancied grievance she thinks she has against me because her cook left her and came to me.”

I couldn’t follow this at all.

“Anatole left her?” I said. “But what about the parlourmaid?”