"If you don't give it back to me," Tony vowed, "I'll sell up the whole flat. Damn it, I'll even sell my boots," he swore, as he tripped over some outposts for which there was no place in the line that extended along the wall of his dressing-room.
Dorothy thought of that lunch-party in Christ Church and of the first time she had beheld those boots. She remembered that then she had beheld in them a symbol of boundless wealth. Now they represented a few shillings in a gambler's pocket. And actually next morning, in order to show that he had been serious the night before, Tony summoned two buyers of old clothes to make an offer for them.
"Don't be so childish," Dorothy exclaimed. "You can't sell your boots! Aren't you going down to camp this year?"
"To camp?" he echoed. "How the deuce do you think I'm going to camp without a halfpenny? No, my dear girl, a week ago I wrote to resign my commission in the N.D.D. You might make a slight effort to realize that we are paupers. And if you won't let me have any of that two thousand pounds we shall remain paupers."
At that moment a telegram was handed in:
All officers of North Devon Dragoons to report at depot immediately.
"Hasn't that fool of an adjutant got my letter?" Tony exclaimed.
Another telegram arrived:
Thought under circumstances you would want to cancel letter holding it till I see you.
"Circumstances? What circumstances?"