It was on the tip of Sergeant-Major Flannery's tongue to point out that other people were clever, too, but he refrained, not so much from modesty as because at this moment he swallowed some sort of insect. When he had finished coughing he found that his companion had passed on to another aspect of the matter.
"I left him alone with Doctor Twist. I wonder if that was safe."
"Quite safe, miss," the Sergeant-Major assured her. "You can see the window's open and the room's on the ground floor. If there's trouble and the gentleman starts any verlence, all the doctor's got to do is to shout for 'elp and I'll get to the spot at the double and climb in and lend a hand."
His visitor regarded him with a shy admiration.
"It's such a relief to feel that there's someone like you here, Mr. Flannery. I'm sure you are wonderful in any kind of an emergency."
"People have said so, miss," replied the Sergeant-Major, stroking his moustache and smiling another quiet smile.
"But what's worrying me is what's going to happen when my brother comes to after the sleeping draught and finds that he is locked up. That's what I meant just now when I said he was so clever. The last place he was in they promised to see that he stayed there, but he talked them into letting him out. He said he belonged to some big family in the neighbourhood and had been shut up by mistake."
"He won't get round me that way, miss."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, miss. If there's one thing you get used to in a place like this, it's artfulness. You wouldn't believe how artful some of these gentlemen can be. Only yesterday that Admiral Sir Rigby-Rudd toppled over in my presence after doing his bending and stretching exercises and said he felt faint and he was afraid it was his heart and would I go and get him a drop of brandy. Anything like the way he carried on when I just poured half a bucketful of cold water down his back instead, you never heard in your life. I'm on the watch all the time, I can tell you, miss. I wouldn't trust my own mother if she was in here, taking the cure. And it's no use arguing with them and pointing out to them that they came here voluntarily of their own free will, and are paying big money to be exercised and kept away from wines, spirits, and rich food. They just spend their whole time thinking up ways of being artful."