The other's eyes leapt.
"Chap with a beak on a chestnut!—handsome young scoundrel!—
Frenchified, theatrical, bit o red riband stuck on his stomach."
"That's the man, sir."
"Well, what of him?—Quick!"
Kit repeated the tale of Egypt, as the Gentleman had told it.
The other listened with rapt interest.
"It's all true," he said, "true as the Bible."
He was pacing up and down, his hands behind him.
"There was a time in my life," he began at last "when I had—er—the regrettable habit of—er—using foul language, as your Uncle Jacko may have told you. Never filthy language! never that. I always swore like a gentleman. Chucked the d's and b's and g's about a bit too merry. Well, one day—it was in Egypt—I was carrying on a bit, when a pious sort of ass I knew at home, who was standing by, said—'I wonder what your mother'd think if she heard you now, Harry Joy.' So after I'd given him some for imself, I went back to my tent and thought a bit.
"You see I'd just heard from home that poor old mother was failing. And I couldn't help thinking—Now supposing she dies, and first thing she hears when she gets to heaven is her boy loosing off on earth!…