"It wasn't that sentry whose fingers held the pen, but brave Kempenfelt, another man of the same sort; though there was more excuse for him, because he seems to have been taken by surprise when the land breeze shook the shrouds."
"I don't in the least know what you're talking about," said the Major. "Is there a moving bog, or a high tide, or anything unusual?"
"There's something a great deal worse," said Meldon. "Did you hear what Doyle said to me a few minutes ago?"
"I heard him asking for the loan of my car cushions. I don't particularly want to lend them, but I shouldn't regard his getting them as a catastrophe at all to be compared to the earthquake and all the other things you were gassing about."
"The cushions in themselves are nothing, and less than nothing, but did you hear who he wants them for?"
"Some judge or other, wasn't it? Salmon fishing."
"Some judge! What judge?"
"Did he mention his name? If he did I have forgotten it."
"He did mention it," said Meldon. "It was Hawkesby—Sir Gilbert Hawkesby. Now do you see why I say that we are threatened with a disaster worse than the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the fire and brimstone that overwhelmed Sodom and Gomorrah?"
"No, I don't see anything of the sort. What on earth does the judge matter to us?"