“It’s a terrible tramp, sir, on a hot afternoon, and in rubber soles!” Sprawson winced involuntarily at the recollection; but the thought of his companion consoled him yet again. “Especially after bowling all the morning,” he added, “and expecting to go in the moment you got back!”
“Well, that wouldn’t have been necessary,” said Heriot. “It must be some satisfaction to you that the Sixth won so easily, even without your certain century, Cave.”
“It doesn’t alter the fact that he had to walk back after all,” said Sprawson, when the greater man had been given ample time to answer for himself.
“So had you!” he thundered then, not like a great man at all, but in a voice that gave some idea of that homeward tramp and its recriminations, in which Sprawson was suddenly felt to be having the last word now.
“But surely Major Mangles interviewed you first?” inquired Heriot, with becoming gravity.
“Oh, yes; he took us under the trees and asked us questions,” said Sprawson, forcing the gay note a little for the first time.
“Questions he’d no earthly right to ask!” cried Cave with confidence.
“You didn’t take that tone with Major Mangles, I hope, Cave?”
“I daresay I did, sir.”
“Then I can’t say I wonder at his letting you both walk back. Of course, if you didn’t answer his questions satisfactorily, it might alter his whole view of the matter, at least so far as you two were concerned in it.”