"I think you told me this was your first visit home in fifteen years?" he asked.
"That's right. Fifteen years in B.H."
"B.H.?" repeated the new speculator, nervously.
"British Honduras."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. The initials associated themselves in my mind for the moment with another place. B.H. you call it. Very appropriate I should think. I suppose you found many changes in Balham on your return?"
"Wouldn't have known it again," said Mr. Ricketts. "For one thing they'd changed all the lamp-posts along our road. That's the kind of thing to teach a man he's growing old."
Perhaps Hugh wouldn't recognize Hampstead after fifteen years, John thought, gleefully; he might even pass his nearest relations in the street without a salute when like a Rip van Winkle of the tropics he returned to his native country after fifteen years.
"I suppose the usual outfit for hot climates will be necessary?"
Mr. Ricketts nodded; and John began to envisage himself equipping Hugh from the Army and Navy Stores.
"I always think there is something extraordinarily romantic about a tropical outfit," he ventured.