"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"
"How not?"
"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't that at all."
"What was it, then?"
"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful a*s and all that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."
"Parrot-shooting's pretty good in those parts, they tell me," interjected Algy satirically.
"Don't interrupt, old man. This parrot had got out of one of the houses, and a fellow was jabbing at it with a stick, and Jill—you know what she's like; impulsive, I mean, and all that—Jill got hold of the stick and biffed him with some vim, and a policeman ro
