Funny / John Macnab

• Sir Edward pretends to be a tramp, then accidentally reveals he was educated at Eton and pretends he's fallen on hard times. Agatha recounts this story to Archie.
  [Agatha said,] "He was in horrible old clothes, but he had an Eton shield on his watch-chain. He seemed to be ashamed to remember it. He said he had come down in the world—through drink!"
  Archie struggled hard with the emotions evoked by this description of an abstemious personage currently believed to be making an income of forty thousand pounds.
• Archie and Charles return from their political meeting to find their friends have been besieged by journalists and visited by (what they think is) a lunatic.
  Archie: Good God! What kind of lunatic?
  John: Don't know. Mrs Lithgow was not communicative. She said something about smallpox. Maybe he's a fellow-sufferer looking for Archie's company. Anyhow, he's in the wine-cellar for Wattie to deal with.
  [Archie investigates and is considerably upset when he returns]
  Archie: It's deuced hard luck. Here am I just making a promising start in my public career, and you've gone and locked up the local Medical Officer of Health who came to inquire into a reputed case of smallpox.

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