Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/39

 "Who wants to know?" growled Eric, protectively belligerent.

The voice trailed off and a moment later there was a thunderous noise on the stairway. Max Bruff flung himself into the room, tripping over Eric's golf club. As the owner plunged to its rescue there was a heroic clash, and Grover saw his tranquil premises transformed into an arena for the rough and tumble of two titans. One chair had already toppled over, and a table was threatened.

"De grâce, messieurs, respectez mes fleurs!" he cried, leaping up in time to save the daisies.

Bruff, seeing the piano bench free, disengaged himself and sat down, puffing,—not, however, deigning to reinstate his necktie, which he was now wearing hindside-to.

"I needed a bit of hexercise," he said in an accent which he had recently appropriated, as he appropriated anything that appealed to him.

"Lose your next pound at the gym," suggested Grover. "I'll have enough junk to pack up next week without your excess weight!"

Bruff was turning the pages before him. "Fancy a mild young daisy-collector with the nerve to play Revolutionary etudes!" He attacked the study Grover had abandoned, and was playing it in a manner that