He hesitated a moment, but, brief as his contemplation of the matter was, I think that he immediately realized the impossibility of an old man of ninety-five calling at a police station for a monkey—particularly at a time like the present. Naturally, his secret would be guessed at once.
"No!" he said, with quiet dignity. "I shan't want it in any case, now. They'll probably send it to the Dogs' Home at Battersea, or Scotland Yard—or the Zoo. Let them! . . . Er . . . as I was going to say, George, about that sixty-year-old convict, the Americans are a very go-ahead race. I should like you to pop over to the States some day. . . ."
Already, he was beginning to look into the rosy future!
"We must travel," he went on, pensively. "I'm getting bored. I've always wanted to see the world, but when I was younger I hadn't the money; and when I grew older I hadn't the necessary health and vitality. Life is full of anomalies like that, George."
"It is," I agreed, ruefully.
"But this business will do away with such difficulties. There's a big future before us."
I responded to that last word. It had a generous sound about it and awoke ambitions I had buried over a dozen years ago, when an unkind fate had allowed me to pass into the soul-destroying ranks of the Civil Service. Ugh! How I had vegetated since that ghastly day on which the list of "successful" candidates had been published! How the spirit of adventure had been slowly suffocated! How flabby-minded I had become! How mellow! But now at last there was a door opening. My red-tape-bound soul stirred in its prison and peered out at a strip of sunlit country where free men made of life a joyous adventure.
"You're a great man, Gran'pa," I said. "You make me feel quite old beside you."
He dug me good-humoredly in the ribs.
"There are times, George, when I have thought you were rather a stick-in-the-mud. But I've put it down to your job, and the fact that you are British."