"Sammy Barham, so far as anyone can discover, has never read a book in his life nor wanted to. He was educated at Harrow. Lacking the Daily Mail, he is miserable just now, poor boy! I almost forgave the Code upon discovering that his initials, S.B., spell, for a distress signal, 'Can you lend (or give) me a newspaper?'
"Yarrell-Smith reads Penny Dreadfuls. He owns four, and was kind enough, the other day, to lend me one: but it's a trifle too artless even for my artless mind.
"Yarrell-Smith reads Penny Dreadfuls. He owns four, and was kind enough, the other day, to lend me one: but it's a trifle too artless even for my artless mind.
"Young Williams—a promising puppy sent up to me to be walked—reads nothing at all. He brought two packs of Patience cards and a Todhunter's Euclid; the one to rest, the other to stimulate, his mind; and I've commandeered the Euclid. A great writer, Sally! He's not juicy, and he don't palpitate, but he's an angel for style. 'Therefore the triangle DBC is equal to the triangle ABC—pause and count three—'the less to the greater'—pause—'which is absurd.' Neat and demure: and you're constantly coming on little things like that. 'Two straight lines cannot enclose a space'—so broad and convincing, when once pointed out!—and why is it not in The Soldiers' Pocket-Book under 'Staff Axioms'?
"Young Williams—a promising puppy sent up to me to be walked—reads nothing at all. He brought two packs of Patience cards and a Todhunter's Euclid; the one to rest, the other to stimulate, his mind; and I've commandeered the Euclid. A great writer, Sally! He's not juicy, and he don't palpitate, but he's an angel for style. 'Therefore the triangle DBC is equal to the triangle ABC—pause and count three—'the less to the greater'—pause—'which is absurd.' Neat and demure: and you're constantly coming on little things like that. 'Two straight lines cannot enclose a space'—so broad and convincing, when once pointed out!—and why is it not in The Soldiers' Pocket-Book under 'Staff Axioms'?
"When you make up the next parcel, stick in a few of the unlikeliest books. I don't want Paley's Evidences of Christianity: I have tackled that for my Little-Go, and, besides, we have plenty of 'em out here: but books about Ireland, and the Near East, and local government, and farm-labourers' wages, and the future life, and all that sort of thing. "Two nights ago, Polkinghorne got going on our chances in another world. Polkinghorne is a thoughtful man in his way, rising forty—don't know his religion. I had an idea somehow that he was interested in such things. But to my astonishment the boys took him up and were off in full cry. It appeared that each one had been nursing his own thoughts on the subject. The trouble was, none of us knew very much about it—"
Otway, writing beneath the hurricane-lamp, had reached this point in his letter when young Barham exclaimed to the world at large:
"Hallo! here's a tall story!"
The C.O. looked up. So did Polkinghorne, from his Bible. Sammy held a torn sheet of newspaper.
"Don't keep it to yourself, my son," said Otway, laying down his pen and leaning back, so that his face passed out of the inner circle of the lamplight.