Alf tumbled down the wooden stairs with such a furious clatter as to bring the landlady to the kitchen-door.
Later that evening he reported his brother's saying to the Reverend Spink.
"Swore something fearful!" he said. "I couldn't tell you what he did say. I couldn't reelly. Couldn't defile me lips with the words. That's the Army, I suppose. Pick up a lot of dirt there, some of em."
The Reverend Spink, who boasted a moustache he believed to be military, rocked judicially to and fro before the fire. Since he had been ordained a Minister of the Established Church, and had lived in touch with the Archdeacon and Lady Augusta Willcocks, he felt very profoundly that the maintenance of the aristocratic and imperial tradition had been entrusted to his special keeping.
"Had I not been called to a Higher Service," he said, enunciating his words with the meticulous care of one to whom correct pronunciation has always been a difficulty, "I should have gone into the Army, meself." He added—"An officer, of course."
"Of course," repeated Alf, "as is only befitting a gentleman of your rank and stytion in life. No, I got nothing against the Army. Armies must be, as I tell them, and Navies too—if you're an Island. Only all I say is—Leave it to others, I says. You don't want your own family mixed up with that."
But Alf was not done yet.
He went over to Aldwoldston and tried to see Ruth.
She refused, and reported him to Mrs. Trupp, who spoke very seriously to her husband.
"William," she said, "you'll have to sack that man."