wandered in with a matey expression on his face and jumped on my lap.
I welcomed him with a good deal of cordiality. Though but a cat, he did make a sort of third at this party; and he afforded a good excuse for changing the conversation.
“Jolly birds, cats,” I said.
She wasn’t having any.
“Will you drop Bertie Wooster?” she said, absolutely ignoring the cat motif.
“It would be so difficult.”
“Nonsense. It only needs a little willpower. The man surely can’t be as interesting a companion as all that. Uncle Roderick says he is an invertebrate waster.”
I could have mentioned a few things that I thought Uncle Roderick was, but my lips were sealed, so to speak.
“You have changed a great deal since we last met,” said the Pringle disease reproachfully. She bent forward and began to scratch the cat under the other ear. “Do you remember, when we were children together, you used to say that you would do anything for me?”
“Did I?”
“I remember once you cried because I was cross and wouldn’t let you kiss me.”
I didn’t believe it at the time, and I don’t believe it now. Sippy is in many ways a good deal of a chump, but surely even at the age of ten he cannot have been such a priceless ass as that. I think the girl was lying, but that didn’t make the