“Hallo, Bertie!” said Claude. “Had a nice refreshing sleep? Now, what about a good old bite of lunch?”

I’d been having so many distorted nightmares since I had dropped off to sleep that for half a minute I thought this was simply one more of them, and the worst of the lot. It was only when Claude sat down on my feet that I got on to the fact that this was stern reality.

“Great Scott! What on earth are you doing here?” I gurgled.

Claude looked at me reproachfully.

“Hardly the tone I like to hear in a host, Bertie,” he said reprovingly. “Why, it was only last night that you were saying you wished I was stopping a good long time. Your dream has come true. I am!”

“But why aren’t you on your way to South Africa?”