Jim Maitland tilted his top-hat a little farther back on his head, and lit a cigarette. In front of him twinkled the myriad lights of London; behind the door he had just closed twinkled the few candles that had not yet guttered out. The Bright Young Things liked candles stuck in empty bottles as their illuminations.
The hour was two of a summer’s morning; the scene–somewhere in Hampstead. And as he walked down the steps into the drive he pondered for the twentieth time on the asininity of man–himself in particular. Why on earth had he ever allowed that superlative idiot Percy to drag him to such a fool performance?
Percy was his cousin, a point he endeavoured unsuccessfully to forget. In fact the only thing to be said in favour of Percy’s continued existence was that since he embodied in his person every known form of fatuitousness, he might be regarded as doing duty for the rest of the family.
He had seen Percy afar off in the club before dinner, and with a strangled grunt of terror had fled into the cloak-room only to realise a moment later that he had delivered himself bound hand and foot into the enemy’s hands. For the cloak-room was a cul-de-sac, and already a strange bleating cry could be heard outside the entrance. Percy had spotted him, and relinquishing the idea of burying himself in the dirty towel basket he prepared to meet his fate.