The explanation was, of course, that the life of pleasure comes high. You cannot go stuffing yourself and a voracious sea cook at restaurants, taking buses and Underground trains all over the place, and finally winding up at a cinema palace, without cutting into your capital. Sam was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the half-crown was his only remaining spare coin. He was, accordingly, about to abandon the idea of largess and move on, when the vocalist, having worked his way through You’re the Sort of a Girl That Men Forget, began to sing that other popular ballad entitled Sailors Don’t Care. And it was no doubt the desire to refute the slur implied in these words on the great brotherhood of which he was an amateur member that decided Sam to be lavish.
The half-crown changed hands.
Sam resumed his walk. At a quarter past eleven at night there is little to amuse and interest the stroller east of Wellington Street, so he now crossed the road and turned westward. And he had not been walking more than a few paces when he found himself looking into the brightly lighted window of a small restaurant that appeared to specialise in shellfish. The slab beyond the glass was paved with the most insinuating oysters. Overcome with emotion, Sam stopped in his tracks.
There is something about the oyster, nestling in its shell, which in the hours that come when the theatres are closed and London is beginning to give itself up to nocturnal revelry stirs right-thinking men like a bugle. There swept over Sam a sudden gnawing desire for nourishment. Oysters with brown bread and a little stout were, he perceived, just what this delightful evening demanded by way of a fitting climax. He pulled out his note-case. Even if it meant an inferior suit next morning, one of those Treasury notes which lay there must be broken into here and now.
It seemed to Sam, looking back later at this moment, that at the very first touch the note-case had struck him as being remarkably thin. It appeared to have lost its old jolly plumpness, as if some wasting fever had struck it. Indeed, it gave the impression, when he opened it, of being absolutely empty.
It was not absolutely empty. It is true that none of the Treasury notes remained, but there was something inside—a dirty piece of paper on which were words written in pencil. He read them by the light that poured from the restaurant window:
“Dear Sam,—You will doubtless be surprised, Sam, to learn that I have borowed your money. Dear Sam, I will send it back tomorow A.M. prompt. Nothing can beat that wipet, Sam, so I have borowed your money.
“Trusting this finds you in the pink,
“Yrs. Obedtly,
“C. Todhunter.”
Sam stood staring at this polished communication with sagging jaw. For an instant it had a certain obscurity, the word “wipet” puzzling him particularly.