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272 Captain Puffin!) Oh, how naughty of you to have begun your shopping without me!”

“Only been to the grocer’s,” said the Contessa. “Major Benjy has been so amusing that I haven’t got on with my shopping at all. I have written to Cecco to say that there is no one so witty.”

(Major Benjy! thought Miss Mapp bitterly, remembering how long it had taken her to arrive at that. “And witty.” She had not arrived at that yet.)

“No, indeed!” said the Major. “It was the Contessa, Miss Mapp, who has been so entertaining.”

“I’m sure she would be,” said Miss Mapp, with an enormous smile. “And, oh, Major Benjy, you’ll miss your tram unless you hurry, and get no golf at all, and then be vexed with us for keeping you. You men always blame us poor women.”

“Well, upon my word, what’s a game of golf compared with the pleasure of being with the ladies?” asked the Major, with a great fat bow.

“I want to catch that tram,” said Puffin quite distinctly, and Miss Mapp found herself more nearly forgetting his inebriated insults than ever before.

“You poor Captain Puffin,” said the Contessa, “you shall catch it. Be off, both of you, at once. I will not say another word to either of you. I will never forgive you if you miss it. But to-morrow afternoon, Major Benjy.”

He turned round to bow again, and a bicycle luckily (for the rider) going very slowly, butted softly into him behind.

“Not hurt?” called the Contessa. “Good! Ah, Miss Mapp, let us get to our shopping! How well you manage those men! How right you are about them! They want their golf more than they want us, whatever they may say. They would hate us, if we kept them from