“At the Rag. the other day, respectfully dining with my respected parent, I encountered, respectfully dining with his respected parent, your embryo Strawberry Leaf, old ‘Punch Peerson’. (Do you remember his standing on his head on the engine at Blackwater Station when he was too ‘merry’ to be able to stand steady on his feet?) I learnt that he is still with you and I want him to do something for me. He’ll be serious about it if you speak to him about it—and I am writing to him direct. I’m going to send you a letter (under my cover), and on it will be one word ‘Dam’ (on the envelope, of course). I want you to give this to Punch and order him to show it privately to the gentlemen-rankers of the corps till one says he recognizes the force of the word (pretty forceful, too, what!) and the writing. To this chap he is to give it. Be good to your poor ‘rankers,’ Monty, I know one damned hard case among them. No fault of his, poor chap. I could say a lot—surprise you—but I mustn’t. It’s awfully good of you, old chap. I know you’ll see it through. It concerns as fine a gentleman as ever stepped and the finest woman!
“Ever thine,
“O. DELORME.”
“Look here, my lambs—or rather, Black Sheep,” quoth Trooper Punch Peerson one tea-time to Troopers Bear, Little, Goate, Nemo, Burke, Jones, and Matthewson, “I suppose none of you answers to the name of ‘Dam’?”
No man answered, and Trooper Peerson looked at the face of no man, nor any one at any other.
“No. I thought not. Well, I have a letter addressed in that objurgatory term, and I am going to place it beneath my pillow before I go out to-night. If it is there when I come in I’ll destroy it unopened. ‘Nuff said,’ as the lady remarked when she put the mop in her husband’s mouth. Origin of the phrase ‘don’t chew the mop,’ I should think,” and he babbled on, having let his unfortunate friends know that for one of them he had a letter which might be received by the addressed without the least loss of his anonymity.
Dam’s heart beat hard and seemed to swell to bursting. He felt suffocated.
“Quaint superscription,” he managed to observe. “How did you come by it?” and then wished he had not spoken…. Who but the recipient could be interested in its method of delivery? If anyone suspected him of being “Dam” would they not at once connect him with the notorious Damocles de Warrenne, ex-Sandhurst cadet, proclaimed coward and wretched neurotic decadent before the pained, disgusted eyes of his county, kicked out by his guardian … a disgrace to two honoured names. … “The Adjer handed it over. Thought I was the biggest Damn here, I suppose,” Trooper Peerson replied without looking up from his plate. “Practical silly joke I should think. No one here with such a l_oath_some, name as Dam, of course,” but Trooper Punch Peerson had his philosophic “doots”. He, like others of that set, had heard of a big chap who was a marvel at Sandhurst with the gloves, sword, horse, and other things, and who had suddenly and marvellously disappeared into thin air leaving no trace behind him, after some public scandal or other…. But that was no concern of Trooper Punch Peerson, gentleman….
With a wary eye on Peerson, Dam lay on his bed, affecting to read a stale and dirty news-sheet. He saw him slip something beneath his pillow and swagger out of the barrack-room. Anon no member of the little band of gentleman-rankers was left. Later, the room was empty, save for a heavily snoring drunkard and a busy polisher who, at the shelf-table at the far end of the room, laboured on his jack-boots, hissing the while, like a groom with a dandy-brush.
Going to Peerson’s bed, Dam snatched the letter, returned to his own, and flung himself down again—his heart pumping as though he had just finished a mile race. Lucille had got a letter to him somehow. Lucille was not going to drop him yet—in spite of having seen him a red-handed, crop-haired, “quiff”-wearing, coarse-looking soldier…. Was there another woman in the world like Lucille? Would any other girl have so risen superior to her breeding, and the teachings of Miss Smellie, as to do what she thought right, regardless of public scandal…? But he must not give her the opportunity of being seen talking to a soldier again—much less kissing one. Not that she would want to kiss him again like that. That was the kiss of welcome, of encouragement, of proof that she was unchanged to him—her first sight of him after the débâcle. It was the unchecked impulse of a noble heart—and the action showed that Miss Smellie had been unable to do it much harm with her miserable artificialities and stiflings of all that is natural and human and right…. Should he read the letter at once or treasure it up and keep it as a treat in store? He would hold it in his hand unopened and imagine its contents. He would spin out the glorious pleasure of possession of an unopened letter from Lucille. He could, of course, read it hundreds of times—but he would then soon know it by heart, and although its charm and value would be no less, it would merge with his other memories and become a memory itself. He did not want it to become a memory too soon.
The longer it remained an anticipation, the more distant the day when it became a memory….