Only one adventure was by mutual consent not alluded to: their clandestine visit to The Hermitage, coupled with Noaks's threat, hung like the sword suspended by a single hair above the head of Damocles at the feast.
At length, when the paper bags had been wellnigh emptied, Jack Vance intimated his intention of making a speech--which announcement was received with considerable applause.
"Don't finish up your cocoa," he began, "because, before we dissolve the Alliance, I'm going to propose a toast.

We've been friends a long time, and both here and at The Birches, as Diggory says, the Triple Alliance has done wonders and covered itself with glory." (Cheers.) "We said when we started that we'd always stand by each other whatever happened; and so we have, and so we would again if we were going to be together any longer." ("Hear, hear!") "I wish 'Rats' could have joined us, but then I suppose it wouldn't have been the Triple Alliance.

However, now it's finished with; but before we break it up, I'm going to call upon you to drink the health of Mr.Mugford.

May he have long life and happiness, and a jolly fine house, with a model railway, and a lake for boating in the grounds, and ask us all to come and stay with him whenever we feel inclined." This sentiment was received with shouts of applause, and in honouring it the jam-pots were drained to their muddy dregs.
No one expected that Mugford would reply, for he was decidedly a man of few words; but on this occasion he rose above his usual self, and sitting with his hands in his trouser pockets, his feet on the fender of the stove, and his chin sunk forward on his breast, delivered himself as follows.

The room was already growing dark with the early winter twilight, which perhaps rendered it more easy for him to undertake the task of responding to the toast.
"You've always been very kind to me," he began, speaking rather quickly.
"No, we haven't," interrupted Jack Vance.
"Yes, you have.