Learning to Have a Life Part 3

Ernest eventually discovered that declaring he had nowhere else in the kingdom to be was considerably easier than convincing Eleanor that he meant it.

She glanced down pointedly at the right hand he had self-consciously lowered from his waistcoat pocket. "No emergency cabinet hearings on railway tariffs?"

"None scheduled for tonight," Ernest replied smoothly.

"No urgent metallurgical reports awaiting signature?"

"Several, in fact."

Eleanor raised an eyebrow.

Ernest quickly recalibrated his statement. "None that require my immediate cognitive intervention before sunrise tomorrow."

"A marked improvement in framing."

"No urgent dispatches from the regional telegraph offices."

"Splendid."

"No midnight blast-furnace commissioning trials."

"Ernest."

"What?"

"You are not required to recite your entire operational ledger merely to prove you are unoccupied."