“And Francis?” asked Alice. “What is our Francis Gordon doing for his country?”
Bromley broke off from a discussion on “Birdcatcher blood,” said “That isn’t the Francis Gordon, is it? The chap who wrote ‘The Nut Errant’?”
“Extraordinary,” thought Peter, having explained the relationship, “how many people do know that weird cousin of mine.” And he wondered, for the fiftieth time, what could have happened to Francis. But of Mr. “Raymond P. Sellers” and the Amsterdam trip, he said nothing. . . .
Dinner over, they settled themselves with coffee, liqueurs and cigars, before the fire in the hall. The band was playing in the Winter Garden, the hall almost deserted.
Stark, whom two cocktails, the best part of a bottle of fizz and three liqueur brandies had left quite unmoved, began a tactful catechism. He wanted to know the number of subalterns in the Chalkshires; what chance they had of promotion: who their Colonel was; and how they got on with him: if Peter knew anything about horses; and why he had given up fox-hunting. Having assured himself on these points, he threw his cigar into the grate, and asked suddenly:
“I suppose neither of you two would care for a change?”
Bromley said, “I don’t quite understand?” Peter, who had followed the drift of the conversation almost from the first, did not speak.
“Well, quite entre nous,” began Stark, “I’m eight officers short of my twenty-four. I’ve written to Dawson at the W.O. and he says”—drawing a letter from his tunic-pocket—“ ‘Why not hunt about among the Infanteers? They’re hundreds over establishment in your Division.’ . . . So I thought perhaps. . . .”
There fell a short silence: then Peter said: “It’s the men I’m thinking about;” and Bromley: “I shouldn’t care to leave the old Major.”
“Well, take your time about it. There’s no hurry. We’ve only got fifty horses out of our seven hundred so far.” The Weasel pulled down his tunic; rang the bell; ordered three whiskies and sodas, a lemonade.