“Why, how cosy you are!” he cried.
“Ah, ha,” I said, “I told you it wasn’t so bad here.”
He picked up my books, looked at Galleon’s Roads and then Pride and Prejudice.
“It’s the simplest things that last,” he said. “Galleon’s jolly good, but he’s not simple enough. Tess is the thing, you know, and Tono-Bungay, and The Nigger of the Narcissus... I usen’t to think so. I’ve grown older, haven’t I?”
He had.
“What do you think of Discipline now?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord!” he blushed, “I was a young cuckoo.”
“And what about knowing all about Russia after a week?”
“No—and that reminds me!” He drew his chair closer to my bed. “That’s what I’ve come to talk about. Do you mind if I gas a lot?”
“Gas as much as you like,” I said.