“What do you mean by that?”
“O well, time is nothing, it’s nothing, it comes and off it goes. Has it ever occurred to you, Bollington, that in 5,000 years or so there will be nobody in the world speaking the English language, our very existence even will be speculated upon, as if we were the Anthropophagi? O good lord, yes.”
And another whiskey.
“You know, Bollington, you were a perfect fool. You behaved like one of those half-baked civil service hounds who lunch in a dairy on a cup of tea and a cream horn. You wanted some beef, some ginger. You came back, you must have come back because there you are now.”
“Yes, Turner, I came back after nearly four years. Everything was different, ah, how strange! I could not find Phoebe, it is weird how people can disappear. I made enquiries, but it was like looking for a lost umbrella, fruitless after so long.”
“Well, but what about Mrs. Macarthy?”
Mr. Bollington said, slowly and with the utmost precision: “I did not see Mrs. Macarthy again.”
“O, of course, you did not see her again, not ever.”
“Not ever. I feared Phoebe had gone abroad too, but at last I found her in London....”
“No,” roared Turner, “why the devil couldn’t you say so and done with it? I’ve been sweating with sympathy for you. O, I say, Bollington!”