and parking his hat on a chair had been standing by wrapped in the silence, gave a little cough, like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain top.
“The fact is, Mr. Wooster,” he said, “a sad, a most deplorable thing has occurred. This afternoon, while you were so kindly escorting my sist-ah, I found the time hang a little heavy upon my hands and I was tempted to—ah—gamble at the Casino.”
I looked at the man in a kindlier spirit than I had been able to up to date.
This evidence that he had sporting blood in his veins made him seem more human, I’m bound to say.
If only I’d known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing, I felt that we might have had a better time together.
“Oh!” I said. “Did you click?”
He sighed heavily.
“If you mean was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I rashly persisted in the view that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably at no distant date give place to black. I was in error. I lost my little all, Mr. Wooster.”
“Tough luck,” I said.
“I left the Casino,” proceeded the chappie, “and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, a Colonel Musgrave, who chanced to be holiday-making over here. I—er—induced him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank.”
“Well, that was all to the good,