frowned a little when I spoke. "You don't seem to be doing anything,"
I said.

"It's not what I'm doing, it's what I am _not_ doing that
matters."

It sounded like an epigram, but epigrams are so little associated with
Reggie that I ventured to ask what he meant.

He sighed. "Ah well," he said. "I suppose the sooner I tell you, the
sooner you'll go. Do you know Bodfish?"

I shuddered. "Wilkinson Bodfish? I do."

"Have you ever spent a weekend at Bodfish's place in the country?"

I shuddered again. "I have."

"Well, I'm _not_ spending the weekend at Bodfish's place in the
country."

"I see you're not. But----"

"You don't understand. I do not mean that I am simply absent from
Bodfish's place in the country. I mean that I am _deliberately_
not spending the weekend there. When you interrupted me just now, I
was not strolling down to Bodfish's garage, listening to his prattle
about his new car."

I glanced around uneasily.