Suddenly, from under a bundle of British Weeklies, there emerged a head, and gradually a man crawled out. It was the Artilleryman.
"I'm burning hot," he said; "it's a touch of—what is it?—erethism."
His voice was hoarse, and his Remarks, like the Man of Kent's, were
Rambling.
"Where do you come from?" he said.
"I come from Woking," I replied, "and my nature is Wobbly. I love my
love with a W because she is Woluptuous. I took her to the sign of the
Wombat and read her The War of the Worlds, and treated her to Winkles,
Winolia and Wimbos. Her name is Wenus, and she comes from the Milky
Way."
He looked at me doubtfully, then shot out a pointed tongue.
"It is you," he said, "the man from Woking. The Johnny what writes for Nature. By the way," he interjected, "don't you think some of your stuff is too—what is it?—esoteric? The man," he continued, "as killed the curate in the last book. By the way, it was you as killed the curate?"
"Artilleryman," I replied, "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little meat-chopper. And you, I presume, are the Artilleryman who attended my lectures on the Eroticism of the Elasmobranch?"
"That's me," he said; "but Lord, how you've changed. Only a fortnight ago, and now you're stone-bald!"
I stared, marvelling at his gift of perception.