“Oh, here you are!” he said, pleased. “I say, old man, I’m awfully glad it’s all right.” “All right!” An overwrought snort escaped Ukridge. His bosom swelled beneath his mackintosh. “All right!” “I’m frightfully sorry there was any trouble.” Ukridge struggled for utterance. “Do you know I spent the night on a beastly plank bed,” he said, huskily. “No, really? I say!” “Do you know that this morning I was washed by the authorities?” “I say, no!” “And you say it’s all right!” He had plainly reached the point where he proposed to deliver a lengthy address of a nature calculated to cause alarm and despondency in Looney Coote, for he raised a clenched fist, shook it passionately, and swallowed once or twice. But before he could embark on what would certainly have been an oration worth listening to, his host anticipated him. “I don’t see that it was my fault,” bleated Looney Coote, voicing my own sentiments. “You don’t see that it was your fault!” stuttered Ukridge. “Listen, old man,” I urged, pacifically. “I didn’t like to say so before, because you didn’t seem in the mood for it, but what else could the poor chap have done? You took his car without a word of explanation——” “What?” “——and naturally he thought it had been stolen and had word sent out to the police-stations to look out for whoever had got it. As a matter of fact, it was I who advised him to.” Ukridge was staring bleakly at Looney. “Without a word of explanation!” he echoed. “What about my letter, the long and carefully-written letter I sent you explaining the whole thing?” “Letter?” “Yes!” “I got no letter,” said Looney Coote. Ukridge laughed malevolently. “You’re going to pretend it went wrong in the post, eh? Thin, very thin. I am certain that letter was posted. I remember placing it in my pocket for that purpose. It is not there now, and I have been wearing this suit ever since I left London. See. These are all the contents of my——” His voice trailed off as he gazed at the envelope in his hand. There was a long silence. Ukridge’s jaw dropped slowly. “Now, how the deuce did that happen?” he murmured. I am bound to say that Looney Coote in this difficult moment displayed a nice magnanimity which I could never have shown. He merely nodded sympathetically. “I’m always doing that sort of thing myself,” he said. “Never can remember to post letters. Well, now that that’s all explained, have a drink, old man, and let’s forget about it.” The gleam in Ukridge’s eye showed that the invitation was a welcome one, but the battered relics of his conscience kept him from abandoning the subject under discussion as his host had urged. “But upon my Sam, Looney, old horse,” he stammered, “I—well, dash it, I don’t know what to say. I mean——” Looney Coote was fumbling in the sideboard for the materials for a friendly carouse.