"If you don't mind plain speaking, I should say you must have been as villainous a little thug as ever walked."
"Oh, I was no mollycoddle," said H.M., obscurely pleased. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat.
"I will now deal with the time I put shaving-cream in George Merrivale's alarm-clock, so that every time the alarm rang the clock started to froth like a beer-tap. Or perhaps it will interest my readers more to hear-"
"Excuse me, sir. But did you ever devil anybody except your Uncle George?" "How do you mean?"
"Well, I want to get the thing in perspective, that's all. If you go on like this, your readers will expect you to be giving him poison by the age of fifteen."
"To tell you the truth," nodded H.M., "I thought of doin' that. I disliked that blister then, and I dislike him yet. This is doing me a lot of good, son. Haah! When I begin—"
"And do you date your first interest in crime from that time?"
H.M. looked blank. "Crime?"
"I mean your success in solving criminal cases, both connected with the War Office and outside it?"
"Oh, son!" said H.M., shaking his head dismally and directing a pitying glance at his visitor. "There's nothing, in that."