POST-PRANDIAL
startled expression with keen enjoyment. "Well, consider that for once you've scared me. I'm off—just time to catch the ten-twenty for Greenfields. Waiter!"
He scrawled his initials at the bottom of the bill presented him, and rose. "Sorry, Bannerman," he said, chuckling, "to cut short a pleasant evening. But you shouldn't startle me so, you know. Pardon me if I run; I might miss that train."
"But there was something else"
"It can wait."
"Take a later train, then."
"What! With this grave peril hanging over me? Impossible! 'Night."
Bannerman, discomfited, saw Maitland's shoulders disappear through the dining-room doorway, meditated pursuit, thought better of it, and reseated himself, frowning.
"Mad Maitland, indeed!" he commented.
As for the gentleman so characterized, he emerged, a moment later, from the portals of the club, still chuckling mildly to himself as he struggled into a
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