"My friend is apparently unable to be present," he said to the head waiter. "You can serve me now. I suppose as a dinner for two has been ordered I must pay for both?"
"That is the rule of the hotel, sir," replied the man.
"And in that case I presume I can have a double allowance?"
The waiter shook his head and winked solemnly.
"Can't be done, sir," he replied. "'Gainst regulations. You'll pay for two dinners, I admit, sir; that's your misfortune."
"Then I suppose the extra meal will be wasted?"
"A drop in the ocean of waste, sir, I assure you," said the man confidentially. "Tons of waste down this part of the country. Take petrol, for example. I've a motor-bike of my own and can't use it, although half a gallon of petrol a week would be as much as I want. And yet the coastguards, when hundreds of cans were washed ashore along the coast, were told to wrench off the brass caps of the tins—useful for munitions, I suppose, sir—and chuck petrol and cans back into the sea. And I paid my licence to the end of the year."
"Hard lines," remarked the ober-leutnant. "But the nation's at war, you know."
"Quite true, sir," replied the man. "I wouldn't mind making sacrifices if I knew all the petrol was going to naval and military use—tanks and patrol boats and the like—but waste like I've been telling you makes me a bit up the pole. Ah, sir, you needn't worry about that second dinner, for here's Mr. Middlecrease."
The waiter hurried off, while von Gobendorff, well-groomed and debonair, greeted the ober-leutnant.