Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George Bross with an apologetic smile and the request: 

“If you’ve got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my business.”

Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and helped himself.

They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk’s mouth.

“Sa-ay!” he exploded—­“looky here:  where’ve you been all night?”

“Ah-h!” P. Sybarite sighed provokingly:  “that’s a long and tiresome story, George.”

With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George’s side.

“A very long and very weary story, George.  I don’t like to tell it to you, really.  We’d be sure to quarrel.”

“Why?” George demanded aggressively.

“Because you wouldn’t believe me.  I don’t quite believe it myself, now that all’s over, barring a page or two.  Your great trouble, George, is that you have no imagination.”

“The devil I ain’t!”

“Perfectly right:  you haven’t.  If you point with pride to that wild flight of fancy which identified ‘Molly Lessing’ with Marian Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say) untenable.  It wasn’t imagination:  it was fact.”

“No!” George ejaculated.  “Is that right?  What’d I tell you?”

“Word of honour!  But it’s a secret, as yet—­from everybody except you and Violet; and even you we wouldn’t tell had you not earned the right to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous—­enough to start something—­several somethings, in fact.”

“G’wan!” George coaxed.  “Feed it to me:  I’ll eat it right outa your hand.  Whatcha been doin’ with yourself all night, P.S.?”

“I’ve been Day of Days-ing myself, George.”

“Ah, can the kiddin’, P.S.  Come through!  Whadja do?”

“Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances—­and—­let me see—­oh, yes!—­dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking in that air of spontaneity without which—­”

“My Gawd!” George despaired—­“he’s off again on that hardy annual talkalogue of his!...  Lis’n, P.S.—­”

“Call me Perceval,” P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.

“Wh-at!”

“Let it be Perceval hereafter, George—­always.  I grant you free permission.”

“But I thought you said—­”

“So I did—­a few hours ago.  Now I—­well, I rather like it.  It makes all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her voice is like.”