closing the door and doing a bit of eyebrow-work, “kindly inform me what is this latest manifestation of insanity?”
It seemed to me that a light and cheery laugh might help the thing along. So I had a pop at one.
“Don’t gibber!” said my genial host. And I’m bound to admit that the light and cheery hadn’t come out quite as I’d intended.
I pulled myself together with a strong effort.
“Awfully sorry about all this,” I said in a hearty sort of voice. “The fact is, I thought you were Tuppy.”
“Kindly refrain from inflicting your idiotic slang on me. What do you mean by the adjective ‘tuppy’?”
“It isn’t so much an adjective, don’t you know. More of a noun, I should think, if you examine it squarely. What I mean to say is, I thought you were your nephew.”
“You thought I was my nephew? Why should I be my nephew?”
“What I’m driving at is, I thought this was his room.”
“My nephew and I changed rooms. I have a great dislike for sleeping on an upper floor. I am nervous about fire.”
For the first time since this interview had started, I braced up a trifle. The injustice of the whole thing stirred me to such an extent that for a moment I lost that sense of being a toad under the harrow which had been cramping my style up till now. I even went so far as to eye this pyjamaed poltroon with a good deal of contempt and loathing. Just because he had this craven fear of fire and this selfish preference for letting Tuppy be cooked instead of himself should the emergency occur,