Ensign Knightley, and Other Stories

by A. E. W. Mason

"Not so much as a hoof."

"No butter?"

"Not enough to cover a sixpence."

"There is cheese, however." He lifted up a scrap upon a fork.

"There will be none to-morrow."

"And as for pay?" he asked slyly.

"Two years and a half in arrears."

Knightley laughed again.

"Moreover," added Shackleton, "out of our nothing we may presently have to feed the fleet. It is indeed the pleasantest joke imaginable."

"In a week, no doubt," rejoined Knightley, "I shall be less sensible of its humour. But to-night—well, I am home in Tangier, and that contents me. Nothing has changed." At that he stopped suddenly. "Nothing has changed?" This time the phrase was put as a question, and with the halting timidity which he had shown before. No one answered the question. "No, nothing has changed," he said a third time, and again his eyes began to travel wistfully from face to face.