George answered solemnly and sharply:
"Yes, sir."
The Major weakly cried:
"Hall!"
"Yessir!" The soldier-conductor came to attention.
"Did you tell him to go to Harrods first?"
"Yessir!"
"I think we might go and sit on the top," said the Major. "It's a nice afternoon."
So the two officers went and sat on the top of the motor-bus. The Major gossiped with soothing tranquillity. He said that he was a pianoforte manufacturer; his father, from whom he had inherited, had traded under a German name because people preferred German pianos to English; he now regretted this piece of astuteness on the part of his father; he was trying to sell his business—he had had enough of it.
"Hi! You!" he called, standing up quite unexpectedly and leaning over the front of the bus to hail the driver. "Hi! You!" But the driver did not hear, and the bus drove forward like fate. The Major, who had hitherto seemed to be exempt from the general perturbation of Wimbledon troops, suddenly showed excitement. "We must stop this bus somehow! Why the devil doesn't he stop? I've forgotten the rope-shop."