eyeball.
“Did you send that letter?” I said.
“Rather! You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent’s ordinary threatening letters I ever wrote.”
“But where’s the sense of it?”
“Bertie, my lad,” said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, “I had an excellent reason. Posterity may say of me what it will, but one thing it can never say—that I have not a good solid business head. Look here!” He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.
“Great Scott!” It was a cheque—an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best, signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.
“What’s that for?”
“Expenses,” said Bingo, pouching it. “You don’t suppose an investigation like this can be carried on for nothing, do you? I now proceed to the bank and startle them into a fit with it. Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on Ocean Breeze. What you want in situations of this kind, Bertie, is tact. If I had gone to my uncle and asked him for fifty quid, would I have got it? No! But by exercising tact—Oh! by the way, what do you think of Charlotte?”
“Well—er—”
Young Bingo massaged my sleeve affectionately.
“I know, old man, I know. Don’t try to find words. She bowled you over, eh? Left you speechless, what? I know! That’s the effect she has on everybody. Well, I leave you here, laddie. Oh, before we part—Butt! What of Butt? Nature’s worst blunder,