fortunate that, when he upset the kettle (he nearly always did at some
period of the evening's business), the contents spread themselves over
Barry, and not over himself. Football clothes will stand any amount of
water, whereas M'Todd's "Youth's winter suiting at forty-two shillings
and sixpence" might have been injured. Barry, however, did not look
upon the episode in this philosophical light. He spoke to him
eloquently for a while, and then sent him downstairs to fetch more
water. While he was away, Drummond and De Bertini came in.

"Hullo," said Drummond, "tea ready?"

"Not much," replied Barry, bitterly, "not likely to be, either, at this
rate. We'd just got the kettle going when that ass M'Todd plunged
against the table and upset the lot over my bags. Lucky the beastly
stuff wasn't boiling. I'm soaked."

"While we wait--the sausages--Yes?--a good idea--M'Todd, he is
downstairs--but to wait? No, no. Let us. Shall we? Is it not so? Yes?"
observed Bertie, lucidly.

"Now construe," said Barry, looking at the linguist with a bewildered
expression. It was a source of no little inconvenience to his friends
that De Bertini was so very fixed in his determination to speak
English. He was a trier all the way, was De Bertini. You rarely caught
him helping out his remarks with the language of his native land. It
was English or nothing with him. To most of his circle it might as well
have been Zulu.

Drummond, either through natural genius or because he spent more time
with him, was generally able to act as interpreter. Occasionally there