Mr. Wain's dining-room repaid inspection. There were the remains of
supper on the table. Mike cut himself some cheese and took some
biscuits from the box, feeling that he was doing himself well. This
was Life. There was a little soda-water in the syphon. He finished it.
As it swished into the glass, it made a noise that seemed to him like
three hundred Niagaras; but nobody else in the house appeared to have
noticed it.

He took some more biscuits, and an apple.

After which, feeling a new man, he examined the room.

And this was where the trouble began.

On a table in one corner stood a small gramophone. And gramophones
happened to be Mike's particular craze.

All thought of risk left him. The soda-water may have got into his
head, or he may have been in a particularly reckless mood, as indeed
he was. The fact remains that _he_ inserted the first record that
came to hand, wound the machine up, and set it going.

The next moment, very loud and nasal, a voice from the machine
announced that Mr. Godfrey Field would sing "The Quaint Old Bird."
And, after a few preliminary chords, Mr. Field actually did so.

_"Auntie went to Aldershot in a Paris pom-pom hat."_

Mike stood and drained it in.