There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing… — P.G. Wodehouse

We exchanged a meaning glance. Or, rather, two meaning glances, I giving him one and he giving me the other.

When news had reached me through well-informed channels that my Aunt Agatha for many years a widow, or derelict, as I believed it is called, was about to take another pop at matrimony, my first emotion, as was natural in the circumstances, had been a gentle pity for the unfortunate goop slated to step up the aisle with her - she, as you are aware, being my tough aunt, the one who eats broken bottles and conducts human sacrifices by the light of the full moon.

She laughed - a solo effort. Nothing in the prevailing circumstances made me feel like turning it into a duet.