He strolled out into the road and swept a wary eye up and down it. Except for a medium-sized boy, with a bias towards stoutness, it was empty. Not without relief, Mr. Foster turned towards his own front garden. It was then that the medium-sized boy, who had been regarding him with stolid intentness, spoke to him.
“I say,” said the boy, “are you Mr. Foster?”
Mr. Foster turned back again. “Yes? Do you want me, my boy?”
“I read about you in The Courier,” said the boy.
Mr. Foster brightened. He was all in favour of people who had read about him in The Courier; he was still more in favour of those of them who came to gaze upon him as if he were a local curiosity. “You did, did you?” said Mr. Foster genially. “Well, and what did you think about it all?”
“Jolly fine. Ripping murder, wasn’t it?” The newcomer spoke a trifle absently; his eyes were fixed on Mr. Foster’s nose. Drawing nearer, he scrutinised that organ with careful attention. “I say,” he continued, “have you ever broken your nose?”
Mr. Foster brightened still more. The story of his nose’s rupture was a good one and its telling never palled; and here was an ideal audience for it. Schoolboy, boxing…. The two of them were obviously going to be great chums. Of course he mustn’t keep that poor girl waiting, but perhaps just a couple of minutes….
“Yes,” he said, and did not notice the slight start performed by his audience. “It was at Beanhurst College, where I was at school. We used to have an annual boxing tournament at the end of each winter term, and I had entered for——”
“I say, were you at Beanhurst?” interrupted his audience in a voice of incredible scorn.
Unfortunately a voice of incredible scorn sounds very much like a voice of incredible awe (if you do not believe this, address yourself absent-mindedly in a voice of incredible scorn and see whether your opinion of yourself does not immediately rise). With his customary complacency Mr. Foster read into this one the latter interpretation.