“Well, now!” said Mr. Stogumber, surprised and gratified. “I disremember that you’ve ever been so nice and open afore. If it ain’t too much to ask, who might he be?”
“Not in the least: there’s no secret about that! His name Is Wilfred Babbacombe, and he is a son of Lord Allerthorpe. In London, he lives In chambers, in Albany; at this season he may be found at Edenhope, near Melton Mowbray.”
“Fancy that!” marvelled Stogumber. “Friend of yours, big ’un?”
“A close friend of mine.”
Mr. Stogumber, after surveying him with an unblinking stare, pushed his coffee-cup away, and said: “And you a trooper!”
John shook his head. “No. I was a Captain in the 3rd Dragoon Guards.”
“I know that,” replied Stogumber placidly. “And you lives at Mildenhurst, in Hertfordshire. What I would like to know is why you’ve took it into your noddle all on a sudden to give over trying to flam me?”
“You know that too. I saw your Occurrence Book the other evening.”
“I suspicioned you did,” said Stogumber, quite unperturbed. “I don’t deny it had me in a bit of a quirk at the time, but that was afore I’d had a report on you. I did think it might be a longish time before they’d be able, in London, to discover who you was, if they could do it at all, but since you was so obliging as to tell me your true monarch, and the very regiment you was in, it seems there wasn’t no trouble about it.”
“Lord, has Bow Street being asking questions about me at the Horse Guards? I shall never hear the end of it!”