His eyes sparkled. His mobile lips were curved in a happy smile. He looked as if he had been taking as much as will cover a sixpence every morning before
“Hullo, Bertie!” he said. “Hullo, Waterbury! Sorry I’m late.”
The bloke Waterbury seemed by no means pleased at this cordial form of address. He froze visibly.
“You are exceedingly late. I may mention that I have been waiting for upwards of half an hour, and my time is not without its value.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Sippy, jovially. “You wanted to see me about that article on the Elizabethan dramatists you left here yesterday, didn’t you? Well, I’ve read it, and I’m sorry to say, Waterbury, that it’s N.G. ”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No earthly use to us. Quite the wrong sort of stuff.
This paper is supposed to be all light Society interest. What the débutante will wear for Goodwood, you know, and I saw Lady Betty Bootle in the Park yesterday—she is, of course, the sister-in-law of the Duchess of Peebles, ‘Cuckoo’ to her intimates—all that kind of rot.
My readers don’t want stuff about Elizabethan dramatists.”
“Sipperley—!”
Old Sippy reached out and patted him in a paternal manner on the back.
“Now listen, Waterbury,” he said, kindly. “You know as well as I do that I