“Yes, here I am.”
“There’s a smut on your nose.”
I plied the handkerchief.
“I am glad you have arrived so early. I want to have a word with you before you meet Mr. Filmer.”
“Who?”
“ Mr. Filmer, the Cabinet Minister. He is staying in the house. Surely even you must have heard of Mr. Filmer?”
“Oh, rather,” I said, though as a matter of fact the bird was completely unknown to me. What with one thing and another, I’m not frightfully well up in the personnel of the political world.
“I particularly wish you to make a good impression on Mr. Filmer.”
“Right-ho.”
“Don’t speak in that casual way, as if you supposed that it was perfectly natural that you would make a good impression upon him. Mr. Filmer is a serious-minded man of high character and purpose, and you are just the type of vapid and frivolous wastrel against which he is most likely to be prejudiced.”
Hard words, of course, from one’s own flesh and blood, but well in keeping with past form.
“You will endeavour, therefore, while you are here not to display yourself in the role of a vapid and frivolous wastrel. In the first place, you will give up smoking during your visit.”
“Oh, I say!”