Follow the Saint

cadence in which the answering voice said: 'Who's that?'

'And how,' said the Saint, 'is the little tum-tum tonight ?'

Mr Teal did not repeat his question. He had no need to. There was only one voice in the whole world which was capable of inquiring after his stomach with the exact inflec­tion which was required to make that hypersensitive organ curl up into tight knots that sent red and yellow flashes squirting across his eyeballs.

Mr Teal did not groan aloud; but a minute organic groan swept through him like a cramp from his fingertips to his toes.

It is true that he was in bed, and it is also true that he had been interrupted in the middle of some important business; but that important business had been simply and exclusively concerned with trying to drown his multitudinous woes in sleep. For a man in the full bloom of health to be smitten over the knob with a blunt instrument is usually a somewhat trying experience; but for a man in Mr Teal's dyspeptic condition to be thus beaned is ultimate disaster. Mr Teal now had two fearful pains rivalling for his attention, which he had been trying to give to neither. The only way of evad­ing this responsibility which he had been able to think of had been to go to bed and go to sleep, which is what he had set out to do as soon as the Saint had left him at his door; but sleep had steadfastly eluded him until barely five minutes before the telephone bell had blared its recall to conscious suffering into his anguished ear. And when he became aware that the emotions which he had been caused by that recall had been wrung out of him for no better object than to answer some Saintly badinage about his abdomen, his throat dosed up so that it was an effort for him to breathe.

'Is that all you want to know ?' he got out in a strangled squawk. 'Because if so——'

'But it bothers me, Claud. You know how I love your tummy. It would break my heart if anything went wrong with it.'

'Who told you anything was wrong with it?'

'Only my famous deductive genius. Or do you mean to tell me you drink Miracle Tea because you like it ?'

There was a pause. With the aid of television, Mr Teal could have been seen to wriggle. The belligerent blare crumpled out of his voice.

'Oh,' he said weakly. 'What miracle tea ?'

'The stuff you had in your pocket this afternoon. I threw it into the car with your other things when I picked you up, but we forgot it when you got out. I've just found it. Guaranteed to cure indigestion, colic, flatulence, constipa­tion, venomous bile, spots before the eyes ... I didn't know you had so many troubles, Claud.'

'I haven't!' Teal roared defiantly. His stomach promptly performed two complicated and unprecedented evolutions and made a liar of him. He winced, and floundered. 'I—I just happened to hear it advertised on the radio, and then I saw another advertisement in a shop window on the way home, so I thought I'd try some. I—I haven't been feeling very fit lately——'

'Then I certainly think you ought to try something,' said the Saint charitably. 'I'll beetle over with your poison right away; and if I can help out with a spot of massage, you only have to say the word.'

Mr Teal closed his eyes. Of all the things he could think of which might aggravate his miseries, a visit from the Saint at that time was the worst.

'Thanks,' he said with frantic earnestness, 'but all I want now is to get some sleep. Bring it over some other time, Saint.'

Simon reached thoughtfully for a cigarette.

'Just as you like, Claud. Shall we say the May Fair to­morrow, at four o'clock ?'

'You could send it round,' Teal said desperately. 'Or just throw it away. I can get some more. If it's any bother.'

'No