Chapter 19

Shorter Commons





We are at the Savoy. Cockie has gone to see his lawyer. He is looking awfully bad, poor boy. He feels the disgrace of having been taken in by that Feccles. But how was he to know?

It was all really my fault. I ought to have had an instinct about it.

I feel rotten myself. London is frightfully hot much hotter than it was in Italy. I want to go and live at Barley Grange. No, I don’t; what I want is to get back to where we were. There’s frightfully little H. left. There’s plenty of C.; only one wants so much.

I wonder if this is the right stuff. The effect isn’t what it used to be. At first everything went so fast. It doesn’t any more.

It makes one’s mind very full; drags out the details; but it doesn’t make one think and talk and act with that glorious sense of speed. I think the truth is that we’ve got tired out.

Suppose I suggest to Cockie that we knock off for a week and get our physical strength back and start fresh.

I may as well telephone Gretel and arrange for a really big supply. If we’re going to live at Barley Grange, we”ll have to be cocaine hogs and lay in a big stock. There wouldn't be any chance of getting it down there; and besides one must take precautions...

Bother August! Of course Gretel’s out of town-in Switzerland, the butler said. They don’t know when she’ll be back. I wonder when Parliament meets.

Cockie came back for lunch with a very long face. Mr. Wolfe gave him a good talking-to about money. Well, that’s perfectly right. We had been going the pace.



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