'I say, old man, you can't mean that?'
'Fact, I assure you. Still as nothing, absolutely nothing wrong could be traced to me, and as——'
'Yes, what,' I said as he hesitated.
'Oh, a little thing I was mixed up in came off rather well—very well in fact.'
'What? Don't keep me in suspense, old man.'
'Oh, nothing much; nothing worth talking about. Still I may as well tell you as it's bound to come out. It seems I am to get the D.S.O.'
'The D.S.O.! Great, old man! I congratulate you with all my heart.
Tell me about it,' I cried.
'It was really nothing. Still I had concocted a scheme which gave us a big advantage. It was rather risky, but it came off so well that—that—it got to the notice of the G.H.Q. and—and—there you are. When the details of my little stunt became known to the Chief he—he said it was impossible for its author to be anything but a loyal Englishman, that I was a valuable man, and all that sort of rot.'
Of course I read between the lines. I knew Edgecumbe's reticence about anything he had done, and I was sure he had accomplished a big thing.
'It came in jolly handy to me,' he went on, 'for it spiked
Springfield's guns right away, and I was regarded as sort of tin god.
Congratulations poured in on every hand and—and, but there's no need
to say any more about it.'