“All right”—Peter nodded to the waiter—“but you’ll lunch with me.”
“Sorry, old thing; but I’ve got a bird meeting me at Romano’s. Can’t afford to waste time on leave. All right for you—you lucky devil—you’re out of it.” He finished his cocktail, strode off.
“Lucky devil?” mused Peter. “I wonder if I am.” The first fine exhilaration of freedom had worn off already. He was “out of it!” He looked down at his cord breeches, his high boots, his chained spurs. “Out of it,” thought Peter. “Cast! like some rotten hairy.[[16]]”. . .
Lunch, alone at a pillar-table in the crammed restaurant, proved an expensive fiasco. The music annoyed, the waiter fidgeted. Half way through, he got an attack of nerves; his left hand shook so that he could hardly hold his fork. Coffee arrived ten minutes after the sweets—stone-cold. Peter paid his bill disgustedly; retrieved cap and cane from the cloak-room; looked up his train; and passed out into the courtyard.
The usual baggage stood piled on the pavement—a miscellaneous collection, “Saratogas,” “Innovations,” flat cabin-trunks and dome-topped portmanteaux.
“People still travelling, I see,” said Peter to the commissionaire.
“Yes, sir. The George Washington arrived yesterday. Taxi, sir?”
“Thanks. No. I’ll walk for a bit.”
Half way down the Strand, another attack of nerves came on. He would be late for his train—he would miss his train. . . . “Undoubtedly,” thought Peter, “those chaps were right when they told me to live in the country.”