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Rh again, and they sat on the bench outside the club-house till the arrival of their unusual conveyance.

“Lunching at the Poppits’ to-morrow?” asked Major Flint.

“Yes. Meet you there? Good. Bridge afterwards, I suppose.”

“Sure to be. Wish there was a chance of more red-currant fool. That was a decent tipple, all but the red-currants. If I had had all the old brandy that was served for my ration in one glass, and all the champagne in another, I should have been better content.”

Captain Puffin was a great cynic in his own misogynistic way.

“Camouflage for the fair sex,” he said. “A woman will lick up half a bottle of brandy if it’s called plum-pudding, and ask for more, whereas if you offered her a small brandy and soda, she would think you were insulting her.”

“Bless them, the funny little fairies,” said the Major.

“Well, what I tell you is true, Major,” said Puffin. “There’s old Mapp. Teetotaller she calls herself, but she played a bo’sun’s part in that red-currant fool. Bit rosy, I thought her, as we escorted her home.”

“So she was,” said the Major. “So she was. Said good-bye to us on her doorstep as if she thought she was a perfect Venus Ana&#8203;—&#8203;Ana something.”

“Anno Domini,” giggled Puffin.

“Well, well, we all get long in the tooth in time,” said Major Flint charitably. “Fine figure of a woman, though.”

“Eh?” said Puffin archly.

“Now none of your sailor-talk ashore, Captain,” said the Major, in high good humour. “I’m not a marrying man any more than you are. Better if I had been perhaps,