“Sit down, old Puce, and have a drink,” laughed Kerr-Anderson. Always gay, was Kerr-Anderson.
But the gentleman from America seemed, as he stood there, uncertain. He glanced down the way he had come. Quillier, watching him, saw that he was fagged out. Eleven years had made a great difference to Mr. Puce. He looked old, worn, a wreck of the hearty giant who was once Howard Cornelius Puce.
“Come, sit down, Puce,” he said kindly, and quite briskly, for him. “Do you realise, man, that it’s eleven years since that idiotic night? What are you doing? Taking a walking-tour?”
Mr. Puce sat down on the stained bench beside them. His massive presence, his massive smile, seemed to fill the whole air about the two men.
“Walking-tour? That is so, more or less,” smiled Mr. Puce; and, with a flash of his old humour: “I want to tell you boys that I am the daughter of the King of Egypt, but I am dressed as a man because I am travelling incognito. Eleven years is it, since we met? A whale of a time, eleven years!”
“Why, there’s been quite a war since then,” chuckled Kerr-Anderson. “But still that night seems like last night. I am glad to see you again, old Puce! But, by Heaven, we owe you one for giving us the scare of our lives! Don’t we, Quillier?”
“That’s right, Puce,” smiled Quillier. “We owe you one all right. But I am heartily glad that it was only a shock you had, and that you were quite yourself after all. And so here we are gathered together again by blind chance, eleven years older, eleven years wiser. Have a drink, Puce?”
The gentleman from America was looking from one to the other of the two. The smile on the massive face seemed one of utter bewilderment. Quillier was shocked at the ravages of a mere eleven years on the man’s face.
“I gave you two a scare!” echoed Mr. Puce. “Aw, put it to music, boys! What the hell! How the blazes did I give you two a scare?”
Kerr-Anderson was quite delighted to explain. The scare of eleven years ago was part of the fun of to-day. Many a time he had told the tale to while away the boredom of Flanders and Mesopotamia, and had often wanted to let old Puce in on it to enjoy the joke on Quillier and himself but had never had the chance to get hold of him.