When young Trexham, the son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, married a minor light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first person in the place to be told; and I flatter myself that I was instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an exceedingly charming daughter-in-law.

I loved to look upon Wellingsford as an open book.

Can you blame me for my resentment at coming across, so to speak, a couple of pages glued together?
The only logical inference from Betty's remark was that Boyce had behaved abominably and even notoriously to a woman in Wellingsford.

To do him justice, I declare I had never heard his name associated with any woman or girl in the place save Betty herself.
I felt that, in some crooked fashion, or the other, I had been done out of my rights.
And there, placidly smoking his cigar and watching the wreaths of blue smoke with the air of an idle seraph contemplating a wisp of cirrus in Heaven's firmament, sat the man who could have given me the word of the enigma.
He broke the silence by saying: "Have you ever seriously considered the real problems of the Balkans ?" Now what on earth had the Balkans to do with the thoughts that must have been rolling at the back of the man's mind?
I was both disappointed and relieved.

I expected him to resume the personal talk, and I dreaded lest he should entrust me with embarrassing confidences.
After three strong whiskies and sodas a man is apt to relax hold of his discretion....