A look of relieved happiness came in to Willoughby Braddock’s face.
“Have you got my hat? Where is it?”
“I haven’t got your hat.”
“You said you had my hat.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Braddock, disappointed. “Well, then, come and have a cuppa coffee.”
It was with the feelings of a voyager who after much buffeting comes safely at last to journey’s end that Sam ranged himself alongside the counter which for so long had been but a promised land seen from some distant Mount Pisgah. The two gentlemen of leisure had melted away into the night, but the uniformed man remained, eating seedcake with a touch of bravado.
“This gentleman a friend of yours, Sam?” asked Mr. Braddock, having ordered coffee and eggs.
“I should say not,” said Sam with aversion. “Why, he thinks the Duke of York has a small clipped moustache!”
“No!” said Mr. Braddock, shocked.