“Hullo!” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came down yesterday with Tom.”
“Is Tom taking the cure?” asked Uncle George, looking up hopefully from the hell-brew.
“Yes.”
“Are you taking the cure?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!” said Uncle George, looking happier than I had seen him for days. He swallowed the last drops, and then, the programme calling for a brisk walk before his massage, left us.
“I shouldn’t have thought you would have been able to get away from the paper,” I said. “I say,” I went on, struck by a pleasing idea. “It hasn’t bust up, has it?”
“Bust up? I should say not. A pal of mine is looking after it for me while I’m here. It’s right on its feet now. Tom has given me a couple of thousand and says there’s more if I want it, and I’ve been able to buy the serial rights of Lady Bablockhythe’s Frank Recollections of a Long Life . The hottest stuff, Bertie. Certain to double the circulation and send half the best-known people in London into hysterics for a year.”
“Oh!” I said. “Then you’re pretty well fixed, what? I mean, what with the Frank Recollections and that article of Mrs. Little’s.”
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.