Jeeves poured silently in.

“Oh, I say, Jeeves,” began Cyril, “I just wanted to have a syllable or two with you. It’s this way—Hallo, who’s this?”

I then perceived that the stout stripling had trickled into the room after Jeeves. He was standing near the door looking at Cyril as if his worst fears had been realised. There was a bit of a silence. The child remained there, drinking Cyril in for about half a minute; then he gave his verdict:

“Fish-face!”

“Eh? What?” said Cyril.

The child, who had evidently been taught at his mother’s knee to speak the truth, made his meaning a trifle clearer.

“You’ve a face like a fish!”

He spoke as if Cyril was more to be pitied than censured, which I am bound to say I thought rather decent and broad-minded of him. I don’t mind admitting that, whenever I looked at Cyril’s face, I always had a feeling that he couldn’t have got that way without its being mostly his own fault. I found myself warming to this child. Absolutely, don’t you know. I liked his conversation.

It seemed to take Cyril a moment or two really to grasp the thing, and then you could hear the blood of the Bassington-Bassingtons begin to sizzle.

“Well, I’m dashed!” he said. “I’m dashed if I’m not!”

“I wouldn’t have a face like that,” proceeded the child, with a good deal of earnestness, “not if you gave me a million dollars.” He thought for a moment, then corrected himself. “Two million dollars!” he added.

Just what occurred then I couldn’t exactly say, but the next few minutes were a bit exciting. I take it that Cyril must have made a dive for the infant. Anyway, the air seemed pretty well congested with arms and legs and things. Something bumped into the Wooster waistcoat just around the third button, and I collapsed on to the settee and rather lost interest in things for the moment. When I had unscrambled myself, I found that Jeeves and the child had retired and Cyril was standing in the middle of the room snorting a bit.

“Who’s that frightful little brute, Wooster?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him before to-day.”

“I gave him a couple of tolerably juicy buffets before he legged it. I say, Wooster, that kid said a 

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