how are you?... And who's party is this, anyhow? Yours or Merriton's?
You seem to be putting yourself rather more to the fore than usual."

"Well, I'll soon be goin' aft," retorted West with a wide grin. "When old
Nigel gets his innings. He's as chockful of news as an egg is of meat."
West was one of the chosen few who had already heard of Nigel's
engagement, and he was rather like a gossipy old woman--but his friends
forgave it in him.

Merriton gave him a shove, and he fell back upon Wynne, emitting a
portentous groan.

"What the devil--?" began that gentleman, in a testy voice.

Tony grinned.

"Nigel was ever thus!" he murmured, with uplifted eyes.

"Shut up!" thundered Stark, clapping a hand over West's mouth, and he
subsided as the doorbell rang again, and Borkins ushered in Fordyce and
Lefroy, two slim-hipped, dapper young gentlemen with the stamp of the
army all over them. The party thus complete, Borkins gravely withdrew,
and some fifteen minutes later the great gong in the hallway clanged
out its summons. They streamed into the dining room, Doctor Bartholomew
upon Tony West's fat little arm; Fordyce and Lefroy, side by side, hands
in pockets and closely cropped heads nodding vigorously; Merriton and
Lester Stark sauntering one slightly behind the other, and exchanging
pleasantries as they went; and just in front of them, Dacre Wynne,
solitary, huge, sinister, and overbearing.