pipe in Norfolk. He felt relieved. Evidently it was some such trifle that law-abiding Evan was magnifying in his constitutional horror of a row.
Jan asked outright if it was smoking, if Mulberry had been getting them cigars, and was at once informed eagerly that he had. But that was not all; the old tell-tale face was scarlet with the rest. And out it all came at last.
"The fact is, Sandham and I have had a bit of a spree now and again in Yardley Wood. Champagne. Not a drop too much, of course, or you'd have heard of it, and so should we. No more harm in it than if you had it in the holidays. I know at one time we used to have champagne every night at home. Heaps of people do; they certainly did at Lord Allenborough's. And yet it's such a frightful crime to touch it here!"
"I suppose Mulberry found out?"
"No—he got it for us."
"I see. And I suppose you paid him through the nose?" continued Jan at length. He would have been the first to take Evan's lenient view of such a peccadillo, if Evan himself had said less in extenuation. But just as Chips Carpenter would dry Jan's genial currents by the overflow of his own, so even Evan had taken the excuses out of his mouth, and left it shut awhile.
"That's just it," replied Evan. "We have paid a wicked price, but we haven't quite squared up, and now it's all falling on me."
"How much do you still owe him?"
"Between four and five pounds."
Jan looked grave; any such sum seemed a great deal to him.
"Can't you raise it from your people?" he suggested.
"No, I can't. They're all abroad, for one thing."
