Sam, who was a red-faced child in buttons, with a man’s walk and the back of one who knew as much as most people, obeyed this command, and ushered the Prophet into a room with a sealing-wax red paper, in which Robert Green was sitting alone, smoking a large cigar and glancing at the “stony-broke edition” of an evening paper. He greeted the Prophet with his usual unaffected cordiality, offered him every drink that had yet been invented, and, on his refusal of them all, handed him a cigar and a matchbox, and whistled “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-av” at him in the most friendly manner possible.
“Bob,” said the Prophet, taking a very long time to light the cigar, “what, in your opinion, is the exact meaning of the term honour?”
Mr. Green’s cheerful, though slightly belated, face assumed an expression of genial betwaddlement.
“Oh, well, Hen,” he said, “exact meaning you know’s not so easy. But—hang it, we all understand the thing, eh, without sticking it down in words. What?”
“I don’t, Bob,” rejoined the Prophet, in the tone of a man at odds with several consciences. “In what direction does honour lie?”
“It don’t lie at all, old chap,” said Mr. Green, with the decided manner which had made him so universally esteemed in yeomanry circles.
The Prophet began to look very much distressed.
“Look here, Bob, I’ll put it in this way,” he said. “Would an honourable man feel bound to keep a promise?”
“Rather.”
“Yes, but would he feel bound to keep two promises?”