‘The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain—
But yet much remains to be said.’
Anyway I’ve done my best to atone.”
Kate came in with a telegram in her hand.
“And have you sixpence about you?” she said. “Of course it’s not in Larkin’s day’s work to deliver telegrams.”
It was not—officially. But your telegram would lie on the little counter of the post office for a whole day waiting for you to chance in—unless Larkin looked to the matter. So he used to pop his red head in at the post-office door, whenever he was near, just to ascertain if there were a blue envelope lying there for one of his clients. And if there were, that client was in possession of it in a few minutes.
“By George, K,—I’ve got to catch the one-thirty,” said Hugh, and he strode this way across his little room and then that way, and knocked a chair over, and seized hold of his coat and began to struggle into it, and still seemed no farther on his way.
“All right,—don’t get excited, old fellow,” said Kate, “I’ll manage it,—no, never mind that coat, you can’t travel in it. Shall I [p201] pack your bag for only one day or longer?” Hugh read the message again, but it did not seem to help him with the amount of clothing he would need; indeed it merely sent his thoughts off at a tangent.