“Bertie,” he said, as we strolled along towards Piccadilly Circus, “the heart bowed down by weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.” Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. “But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.”

“In what way, laddie?”

“I’ve got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud⁠—I will go further, some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew’s curse blister every bulb in her garden.”

“Who are these hounds of hell?” I asked sympathetically.

“Some people named Pringle. I haven’t seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England’s premier warts.”