“If you expect me to break into a paean of enraptured gratitude—”

“Not just yet, perhaps. Patience. Now, in order to savour the full bouquet of the experiment, you must be made happily familiar with the dramatis personæ. And to that end,” said Jonathan cosily, “I suppose that we ring for sherry.”

“I propose,” said Jonathan, filling his companion’s glass, “to abandon similes drawn from painting or music and to stick to a figure that we can both appreciate. I shall introduce my characters in terms of dramatic art, and, as far as I can guess, in the order of their appearance. You look a little anxious.”

“Then my looks,” Mandrake rejoined, “do scant justice to my feelings. I feel terrified.”

Jonathan uttered his little cackle of laughter. “Who can tell?” he said. “You may have good cause. You shall judge of that when I have finished. The first characters to make their unconscious entrances on our stage are a mother and two sons. Mrs. Sandra Compline, William Compline, and Nicholas Compline. The lady is a widow and lives at Penfelton, a charming house some four miles to the western side of Cloudyfold village. She is the grande dame of our cast. The Complines are an old Dorset family and have been neighbours of ours for many generations. Her husband was my own contemporary. A rackety handsome fellow, he was, more popular perhaps with women than with men, but he had his own set in London and a very fast set I fancy it was. I don’t know where he met his wife, but I’m afraid it was an ill-omened encounter for her, poor thing. She was a pretty creature and I suppose he fell in love with her looks. His attachment didn’t last as long as her beauty, and that faded pretty fast under the sort of treatment she had to put up with.