Only I must let them know quick, because the offer’s not going to be open for ever. You’ve no notion what a deuce of a lot of competition there is for that sort of job.”

[p. 28]Mr. Keeble, who had been endeavouring with some energy to get a word in during this harangue, now contrived to speak.

[p. 28]

“And do you seriously suppose that I would . . . But what’s the use of wasting time talking? I have no means of laying my hands on the sum you mention. If I had,” said Mr. Keeble wistfully. “If I had . . .” And his eye strayed to the letter on the desk, the letter which had got as far as “My dear Phyllis” and stuck there.

Freddie gazed upon him with cordial sympathy.

“Oh, I know how you’re situated, Uncle Joe, and I’m dashed sorry for you. I mean, Aunt Constance and all that.”

“What!” Irksome as Mr. Keeble sometimes found the peculiar condition of his financial arrangements, he had always had the consolation of supposing that they were a secret between his wife and himself. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I know that Aunt Constance keeps an eye on the doubloons and checks the outgoings pretty narrowly. And I think it’s a dashed shame that she won’t unbuckle to help poor old Phyllis. A girl,” said Freddie, “I always liked. Bally shame! Why the dickens shouldn’t she marry that fellow Jackson? I mean, love’s love,” said Freddie, who felt strongly on this point.

Mr. Keeble was making curious gulping noises.

“Perhaps I ought to explain,” said Freddie, “that I was having a quiet after-breakfast smoke outside the window there and heard the whole thing. I mean, you and Aunt Constance going to the mat about poor old Phyllis and you trying to bite the guv’nor’s ear and so forth.”

Mr. Keeble bubbled for awhile.

“You—you listened!” he managed to ejaculate at length.

[p. 29]“And dashed lucky for you,” said Freddie with a cordiality unimpaired by the frankly unfriendly stare under which a nicer-minded youth would have withered; “dashed lucky for you that I did. Because I’ve got a scheme.”

[p. 29]

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