His brother officers looked at him in astonishment. His levity, at the possibility of his parent's annihilation by a few hundred pounds of high explosive, seemed altogether out of place.
"Steady, old man," exclaimed Tarleton, the senior "flight-luff."
"Can't help it," continued Barcroft, vainly endeavouring to suppress his mirth. "Fancy a Boche going all that way on a fruitless errand, even supposing he did drop a plum within half a mile of the house. The governor vacated the show last quarter-day, and it's still empty. There isn't another house within a couple of miles of it, and it belongs to a regular pig of a lawyer-josser who's at loggerheads with everybody. Let's hope, if the house is pulverised, that it isn't insured against hostile aircraft. I'm not vindictive, but it would serve the bounder right."
"Where's your governor now?" enquired Fuller.
"Eh? Entering for the Kaiser's Stakes, old man? Well, here's a clue. He's moved to Tarleigh, a little show somewhere in Lancashire. About six or seven miles from Barborough, I believe, and the same distance from anywhere else. At any rate, I'm off there directly I get my leave. By Jove, won't the old man feel honoured!—a price set on his head by Irresponsible Bill. He'll feel as proud as Punch. By the bye—don't all speak at once—who's pinched my matches?"
CHAPTER III
CONCERNING PETER BARCROFT
"AND Billy arrives by the ten-fifty. No, I don't think I'll wait here for three hours and then stand a chance of missing him. I'll get back home and give him a fitting welcome to the new house."
Thus meditated Peter Barcroft as he paced up and down the crowded up-platform of Barborough Station. He had studied with varying emotions a poster depicting a flabby, pigeon-toed child with one hand over that part of the human form known to infants as a "tummy" and supposed to be ejaculating, "I feel so jolly here." Even that mild excitement paled, and Mr. Barcroft pined for the congenial warmth of his study. The platform was cold and draughty, offering no inducements to linger for the arrival of the sure-to-be belated "ten-fifty."
Peter Barcroft was a thick-set man of fortyfive. In height he was a good two inches shorter than his airman son. He was clean shaven. Had he removed his Norfolk cap it might have been noticed that his iron-grey hair showed thin on his temples and was conspicuously absent on the top of his head. His forehead was high, and in conjunction with two vertical wrinkles extending upwards from the inner ends of his eyebrows, gave the appearance of a deep thinker. Otherwise there was little about him to give one the idea that he was engaged in literary pursuits. According to popular notions he ought to be wearing shabby clothes of eccentric, out-of-date cut; he should affect a weird type of soft collar and a flowing tie; his hair ought to be long and wavy. But Peter Barcroft had none of these qualifications. To judge him by appearances he was just an ordinary middle-aged man of powerful physique and retaining many of the qualities of a bygone athletic age.