right. We’ve fixed it up. She says she hadn’t known me properly before. She says she’d always reckoned me a sheep, while all the time I was one of them strong, silent men.’ He turns to Gentleman—“

The man at the other end of the room was calling for his bill.

“All right, all right,” said the waiter. “Coming! He turns to Gentleman,” he went on rapidly, “and he says, ‘Bailey, I owe it all to you, because if you hadn’t told me to insult her folks—’ ”

He leaned on the traveller’s table and fixed him with an eye that pleaded for sympathy.

“ ’Ow about that?” he said. “Isn’t that crisp? ‘Insult her folks!’ Them was his very words. ‘Insult her folks!’ ”

The traveller looked at him inquiringly.

“Can you beat it?” said the waiter.

“I don’t know what you are saying,” said the traveller. “If it is important, write on it a slip of paper. I am stonedeaf.”