A minute later the man opened the door again, announcing:
“Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.”
Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones was a little man with a pink complexion and a small brown moustache. He was short and rather plumper than he could wish, but carried himself very uprightly and with a great sense of his own importance, glaring at those who might be so obtuse as not immediately to recognise it with such concentrated disapproval that it was usual for the offenders to realise their mistake in the quickest possible time. Behind a fussy, self-satisfied exterior he hid a fund of kindness and good nature seldom to be met with. Sir Gregory prided himself on his youthful appearance, was, in his turn, a source of some pride to one of the best tailors in London, took remarkable interest in his ties and boots, trained his remaining hair in the way it should go, and, though he was sixty-five, flattered himself that he looked not a day over fifty-nine.
“I am in luck to find you, Mr. Gimblet,” he said, advancing with outstretched hand as Gimblet rose to receive him. “But this is a sad occasion, a very sad occasion, I fear.”
“Dear me,” said Gimblet, “I’m sorry to hear that. But won’t you sit down? I thought as my man said you were in a hurry you would rather come in here than wait for me. May I offer you some strawberries? No? I’m sorry I can’t give you any wine, but I’m a teetotaller, you know. Don’t have any in the house. Afraid you’ll think me faddy. And now that the servant has gone, may I ask what is the sad event which has given me the pleasure of seeing you?”
“Bad habit, drinking water,” commented Sir Gregory, seating himself in an arm-chair by the fire-place. “But nowadays young men have no heads. They can’t stand it, that’s what it is. Show them three or four glasses of port and they say it gives them a headache. Absurd, sir! The country is rotten through and through. The men can’t eat, they can’t drink, they can’t even dance! They stroll about a ball-room now in a way that would make you sick. In my days we used to valse properly. But they don’t dance the deux-temps any more, I’m told. They say it makes them giddy! Giddy! Rotten constitutions, that’s what we suffer from nowadays. It’s the same with all this talk of reforming the army. Compulsory service indeed,” the major snorted. “What should we want compulsory service for? In my day one Englishman was as good as twenty Germans or any kind of foreigner. At least he would have been if we’d had a European war, which as it happened was not the case while I was in the Service. But now there are actually people who think that if it comes to a fight it would be an advantage for us to have as many men as the enemy. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, if there’s any truth in it. No, no, the army doesn’t need reforming, take my word for it. There are a few alterations which I could suggest in the uniforms which would make all the difference in the world, but except for that, what I say is, let sleeping dogs lie.”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Sir Gregory felt in his pocket, drew forth a cigar case, selected a cigar and asked for a match.
“Did you come to persuade me to your views on compulsory service?” asked Gimblet pleasantly as he continued to devour his strawberries, which were now nearly all gone. “Because I’m afraid it’s no good. You can’t possibly convince me that its adoption is not a vital necessity to the nation.”
“I’m sorry to hear you think that,” said the other, “for I have the highest opinion of your intellect. Believe me, when you discovered the frauds that were being perpetrated at the Great Continental Bank last year, I marked you down, Mr. Gimblet, as the man I should consult in case of need. And it is to consult you that I am here. I said it was a sad occasion. Well, it is sad for me, but I am not yet, as a matter of fact, quite sure whether or no it is desperately so. What has happened, in a word, is this. A lady to whom I am deeply attached has disappeared.”