"Only another addition, Cherub, to your collection of Queer Trades.
These two gentlemen (whose health I have now the pleasure of
drinking) are Professional Detainers."
"And what on earth's that?" I asked.
"It's really very simple, Mr Swinburne," began he who had once
been the Rev. Ellis Shorter, of Chuntsey, in Essex; and it gave
me a shock indescribable to hear out of that pompous and familiar
form come no longer its own pompous and familiar voice, but the
brisk sharp tones of a young city man. "It is really nothing very
important. We are paid by our clients to detain in conversation,
on some harmless pretext, people whom they want out of the way
for a few hours. And Captain Fraser--" and with that he hesitated
and smiled.
Basil smiled also. He intervened.
"The fact is that Captain Fraser, who is one of my best friends,
wanted us both out of the way very much. He is sailing tonight for
East Africa, and the lady with whom we were all to have dined is--
er--what is I believe described as `the romance of his life'. He
wanted that two hours with her, and employed these two reverend
gentlemen to detain us at our houses so as to let him have the
field to himself."
"And of course," said the late Mr Shorter apologetically to me, "as
I had to keep a gentleman at home from keeping an appointment with
a lady, I had to come with something rather hot and strong--rather
urgent.
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