He looked toward the coffee. Then: “Thank you.....Good-bye.”

“Sergeant?”

“Miss Humphrey!”

“Will you not come to us on Christmas Day?”

His eyelids closed swiftly and opened again. “I shall be on duty.”

“And promoted?”

“Perhaps.”

“And merry and happy?”—she smiled to herself to think of Sergeant Fones being merry and happy.

“Exactly.”

The word suited him.