“I begin to suspect that it was deliberately set loose by some mischievous person.”
“Oh, I say, no, hardly likely, that. You’d have seen them doing it.”
“No, Mr. Wooster. For the bushes form an effective screen. Moreover, rendered drowsy by the unusual warmth of the afternoon, I dozed off for some little time almost immediately I reached the island.”
This wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted his mind dwelling on, so I changed the subject.
“Wet, isn’t it, what?” I said.
“I had already observed it,” said the Right Hon. in one of those nasty, bitter voices. “I thank you, however, for drawing the matter to my attention.”
Chitchat about the weather hadn’t gone with much of a bang, I perceived. I had a shot at Bird Life in the Home Counties.
“Have you ever noticed,” I said, “how a swan’s eyebrows sort of meet in the middle?”
“I have had every opportunity of observing all that there is to observe about swans.”
“Gives them a sort of peevish look, what?”
“The look to which you allude has not escaped me.”
“Rummy,” I said, rather warming to my subject, “how bad an effect family life has on a swan’s disposition.”
“I wish you would select some other topic of conversation than swans.”