“Take the whole pouch—do.”
After a moment’s hesitation he did. “Fight the good” had scarcely ended, so quickly had their intimacy grown.
“I suppose you’re a friend of Rickie’s?”
Ansell was tempted to reply, “I don’t know him at all.” But it seemed no moment for the severer truths, so he said, “I knew him well at Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him since.”
“Is it true that his baby was lame?”
“I believe so.”
His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the conversation forward.
“Have you come far?”
“From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?” And for the first time there came into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute to some mystery. “It’s a good country. I live in one of the finest valleys out of Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived.”
“Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your pocket?”