"Not very much."
"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased
with himself.
Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.
"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"
"Most certainly."
"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of
a tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced
twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"
"What bad taste!"
"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't
offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of
scientific terms and all that."
"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.
"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."
Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her title to her
stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from
which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted
letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.
As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:
"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life
paid me."
"And what was that?" asked Mavis.
"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that
time she never understood what my scientific conversation was
about.
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