“Did what?”
“Found this picture tacked up on the wall and fell in love with it. Look!”
He unfolded the paper reverently. It now revealed itself as a portion of a page torn from one of those illustrated journals which brighten the middle of the Englishman’s week. Its sojourn on the wall of the fishing hut had not improved it. It was faded and yellow, and over one corner a dark stain had spread itself, seeming to indicate that some occupant of the hut had at one time or another done a piece of careless carving. Nevertheless, he gazed at it as a young knight might have gazed upon the Holy Grail.
“Well?”
Hash surveyed the paper closely.
“That’s mutton gravy,” he said, pointing at the stain and forming a professional man’s swift diagnosis. “Beef wouldn’t be so dark.”
Sam regarded him with a glance of concentrated loathing which would have embarrassed a more sensitive man.
“I show you this lovely face, all aglow with youth and the joy of life,” he cried, “and all that seems to interest you is that some foul vandal, whose neck I should like to wring, has splashed his beastly dinner over it. Heavens, man, look at that girl! Have you ever seen such a girl?”
“She’s not bad.”
“Not bad! Can’t you see she’s simply marvellous?”