The floor was full. It was crammed, jammed, and overflowing. Where couples had moved as single spies, they were now in battalions. The place was alive with noise and laughter. These people might, as my companion had said, be relying on him to keep things going, but they seemed to have been getting along uncommonly well in his absence. I paused and surveyed the mob in astonishment. I could not make the man’s figures balance.
“ I thought you said the Pen and Ink Club had only a hundred members.”
The secretary was fumbling for his glasses. He had an almost Ukridge-like knack of dropping his pince-nez in moments of emotion.
“ It—it has,” he stammered.
“ Well, reading from left to right, I make it nearer seven hundred.”
“ I cannot understand it.”
“ Perhaps they have been having
