“It is sugar,” he said. “I give you my word that there’s nothing it that case except sugar.”
“Good Lord!” said the General. “Of course, when you say so it’s all right, Ramelton. But would you mind telling me why you want to go driving about the country with two or three hundredweight of sugar in your ear?”
“It’s not my sugar at all,” said Lord Ramelton. “It’s my wife’s. You know the way we’re rationed for sugar now—half a pound a head and the servants eat all of it. Well, her ladyship is bent on making some marmalade and rhubarb jam. I don’t know how she did it, but she got some sugar from a man at Ballymurry. Wangled it. Isn’t that the word?”
“Seems exactly the word,” said the General.
“And I’m bringing it home to her. That’s all.”
“I see,” said the General. “But why not have let the officer see what was in the case? Sugar is no business of his, and you’d have saved a lot of time and trouble.”
“Because a village like this is simply full of spies.”
“Spies!” said the General. “If I thought there were spies here I’d——”
“Oh, not the kind of spies you mean. The Dunedin people are far too sensible for that sort of thing. But if one of the shopkeepers here found out that a fellow in Ballymurry had been doing an illicit sugar deal he’d send a letter off to the Food Controller straightaway. A man up in Dublin was fined £100 the other day for much less than we’re doing. I don’t want my name in every newspaper in the kingdom for obtaining sugar by false pretences.”
“All right,” said the General. “Its nothing to me where you get your sugar.”