“I have no idea,” she confessed. “He comes and goes as the whim seizes him, and I very seldom know where he is. One week it is whiting and another codling. Lately he seems to have shown some partiality for London life.”
Richard's eyes were wide open now.
“You mean to say that he is still not doing anything?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“But what excuse does he give—or rather I should say reason?” Richard persisted.
“He says that he is too old for a ship, and he won't work in an office,” Philippa replied. “That is what he says. His point of view is so impossible that I can not even discuss it with him.”
“It's the rummest go I ever came across,” Richard remarked reminiscently. “I should have said that old Henry would have been up and at 'em at the Admiralty before the first gun was fired.”
“On the contrary,” Philippa rejoined, “he took advantage of the war to hire a Scotch moor at half-price, about a week after hostilities had commenced.”
“It's a rum go,” Richard repeated. “I can't fancy Henry as a skulker. Forgive me, Philippa,” he added.
“You are entirely forgiven,” she assured him drily.