“No, sir. He left no message. He merely enquired as to the probable date of your return and expressed a desire that you would visit him as soon as convenient.” “I’d better go and see him now.” “It might be advisable, sir.” I found George Tupper at the Foreign Office, surrounded by important-looking papers. “Here you are at last!” cried George, resentfully, it seemed to me. “I thought you were never coming back.” “I had a splendid time, thanks very much for asking,” I replied. “Got the roses back to my cheeks.” George, who seemed far from his usual tranquil self, briefly cursed my cheeks and their roses. “Look here,” he said, urgently, “something’s got to be done. Have you seen Ukridge yet?” “Not yet. I thought I would look him up this evening.” “You’d better. Do you know what has happened? That poor ass has gone and got himself engaged to be married to a girl at Clapham!” “What?” “Engaged! Girl at Clapham! Clapham Common,” added George Tupper, as if in his opinion that made the matter even worse. “You’re joking!” “I’m not joking,” said George peevishly. “Do I look as if I were joking? I met him in Battersea Park with her, and he introduced me. She reminded me,” said George Tupper, shivering slightly, for that fearful evening had seared his soul deeply, “of that ghastly female in pink he brought with him the night I gave you two dinner at the Regent Grill—the one who talked at the top of her voice all the time about her aunt’s stomach-trouble.” Here I think he did Miss Price an injustice. She had struck me during our brief acquaintance as something of a blister, but I had never quite classed her with Battling Billson’s Flossie. “Well, what do you want me to do?” I asked, not, I think, unreasonably. “You’ve got to think of some way of getting him out of it. I can’t do anything. I’m busy all day.” “So am I busy.” “Busy my left foot!” said George Tupper, who in moments of strong emotion was apt to relapse into the phraseology of school days and express himself in a very un-Foreign Official manner. “About once a week you work up energy enough to write a rotten article for some rag of a paper on ‘Should Curates Kiss?’ or some silly subject, and the rest of the time you loaf about with Ukridge. It’s obviously your job to disentangle the poor idiot.” “But how do you know he wants to be disentangled? It seems to me you’re jumping pretty readily to conclusions. It’s all very well for you bloodless officials to sneer at the holy passion, but it’s love, as I sometimes say, that makes the world go round. Ukridge probably feels that until now he never realised what true happiness could mean.” “Does he?” snorted George Tupper. “Well, he didn’t look it when I met him. He looked like—well, do you remember when he went in for the heavyweights at school and that chap in Seymour’s house hit him in the wind in the first round? That’s how he looked when he was introducing the girl to me.”