'Yes, wrote and said she'd booked my berth but the ship was full and I'd have to share a cabin with a Captain Booth. Hoped I didn't mind. I loathed it, of course.'
'Of course,' said Brown.
'However, there was nothing to be done but put up with it, so I prayed it might be the Captain Booth in the 4th Lancers that I knew a bit. Where were you, Sam, that time?'
'Typhoid.'
'Oh, yes, of course. Well, I got down to the ship and turned in early, as I was dead done after—forget what I'd been doing; kept half an eye on the door to see what my stable companion was going to be like, and then Captain Booth came in.'
'Was it Captain Booth of the 4th Lancers?' asked Brown.
'Salvation Army lass,' said Ross laconically, and Brown laughed, as he used to do in Uncle Jasper's woods.
Suddenly somebody knocked violently on the wall.
'Anybody ill, do you think?' asked my brother.
'Oh, no, sir, making too much row—laughed a bit too loud, I expect, woke up the other lodgers.'