'Naughty boy to have been so drunk last night,' she purred. 'Think of me, full of lust, ready to do anything, and you went to sleep like a log. I suppose you don't remember how you got undressed?'

Charlie admitted that he didn't.

'Well, I didn't take your clothes off, but my maid did, and put you into your pyjamas. She's out of the common pretty yet with two women by you, you couldn't summon up a flicker of a stand. You've got to make up for it now, my lazy darling.'

Her little hand slipped over his stomach, undid the knot of his pyjama trousers, and played delicately with a very limp and lethargic phallus. Her other hand reached up behind her and touched a bell. Charlie sank back, dreamily anticipating some further surprise.

Almost immediately a very smart and pretty girl, dressed in a sort of comic-opera maid's costume, came in without knocking.

'This gentleman isn't well,' said Charlie's hostess; 'bring the usual remedies.'

'The usual remedies' arrived very swiftly, and a tired and dejected Charlie noted, with a relieved glance, tea, coffee, tiny caviar sandwiches, delicately cut toast, almost smokingly hot little rolls, and more severe comforts in the shape of half-bottles of champagne, and several brands of liqueurs and brandy. On a separate tray were all sorts of fruit.

'If you are very hungry, darling,' said the little fairy of the bed, 'you can have anything you like in the way of a serious breakfast, but my advice is, play about with these little things now, and when we are up and bathed and so on, we'll have a proper meal in the garden by the river; it's a beautiful morning, and the lilies are lovely.'

'River, garden, lilies'-every evidence of wealth-Charlie began to wonder what he had struck, and to think more nervously than ever of his waistcoat pockets.

The pretty maid slipped a soft, rounded arm under Charlie's back, and raised him gently. She sat on the bed by his knee, the trays by her side on a table, and began to feed him like a baby. Charlie's delightful bedfellow lay back in amorous abandon.