Page:Uneasy money by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.djvu/29

  "In a touring company?"

"Yes, I see what you mean," said Lord Dawlish, who didn't at all. He thought rather highly of the number one companies that hailed from the theater of which Mr. Maginnis was proprietor.

"And anyhow, I ought to have had the part in the first place instead of when the tour's half over. They are at Southampton this week. He wants me to join them there and go on to Portsmouth with them."

"You'll like Portsmouth."

"Why?"

"Well—er—good links quite near."

"You know I don't play golf."

"Nor do you. I was forgetting. Still, it's quite a jolly place."

"It's a horrible place. I loathe it. I've half a mind not to go."

"Oh, I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

Lord Dawlish was feeling a little sorry for himself. Whatever he said seemed to be the wrong thing. This evidently was one of the days on which Claire was not so sweet-tempered as on some other days. It crossed his mind that of late these irritable moods of hers had grown more frequent. It was not her fault, poor girl, he told himself. She had rather a rotten time.

It was always Lord Dawlish's habit on these