"He appears to be in the most robust health, sir." 

 A look of relief passed across Tony's face.  "You have taken a weight off my mind, Spalding," he said. "I dreamed that he had broken his neck." 

 The valet shook his head reassuringly. 

 "I observed no sign of it, sir, when I passed him in the hall." 

 "In that case," said Tony, "I think I shall get up. You can fill the bath, Spalding, and you can tell the cook I shan't want any breakfast." 

 The impassive servant bowed and withdrew from the room, and after finishing his tea, Tony got luxuriously out of bed, and proceeded to drape himself in a blue silk dressing-gown with gold dragons embroidered round the hem. It was a handsome garment originally intended for the President of China, but that gentleman had unexpectedly rejected it on the ground that it was too ornate for the elected head of a democratic community. At least that was how the Bond Street shopman who had sold it to Tony had accounted for its excessive price. 

 Lighting a cigarette, Tony sauntered across to the bathroom, where a shave, a cold tub, and a few minutes of Muller's exercises were sufficient to remove the slight trace of lassitude induced by his impersonation of Charles the Second. Then, still clad in his dressing-gown, he strolled down the main staircase, and opening the front door passed out into the garden. 

 The house was one of those two or three jolly old-fashioned survivals which still stand in their own grounds in the neighbourhood of Jack Straw's Castle. Tony had bought up the freehold several years previously, the quaint old Georgian residence in its delightful surroundings appealing to him far more than his own gloomy family mansion in Belgrave Square. As he himself was fond of explaining, it gave one all the charm of living in the country without any of its temptations to virtue. 

 A few yards' walk along a gravel path, hedged in on each side by thick laurel bushes, brought him to the gymnasium. The door was slightly open, and from the quick patter and shuffle of footsteps inside, it sounded as if a number of ballet girls were practising a novel and rather complicated form of step dance. 

 The spectacle that actually met Tony's eyes when he entered, however, was of a less seductive nature. Clad only in a pair of flannel trousers, a young man was spinning and darting 

 Prev. P 12/265 next