“No denyin’ it. I ’ad. So, for one pound, he communicated me the Pass-word of the First Degree which was Tilniz an’ trap-doors.
“‘I know what a trap-door is,’ I says to ’im, ‘but what in ’ell’s Tilniz?’
“‘You obey orders,’ ’e says, ‘an’ next time I ask you what you’re thinkin’ about you’ll answer, “Tilniz an’ trap-doors,” in a smart and soldierly manner. I’ll spring that question at me own time. All you’ve got to do is to be distinck.’
“We settled all this while we was skinnin’ spuds for dinner at the back o’ the rear-truck under our camouflage-screens. Gawd, ’ow that glue-paint did stink! Otherwise, ’twasn’t so bad, with the sun comin’ through our pantomime-leaves, an’ the wind marcelling the grasses in the cutting. Well, one thing leading to another, nothin’ further ’appened in this direction till the afternoon. We ’ad a high standard o’ livin’ in Mess—an’ in the Group, for that matter. I was takin’ away Mosse’s lunch—dinner ’e would never call it—an’ Mosse was fillin’ ’is cigarette-case previous to the afternoon’s duty. Macklin, in the passage, comin’ in as if ’e didn’t know Mosse was there, slings ’is question at me, an’ I give the countersign in a low but quite distinck voice, makin’ as if I ’adn’t seen Mosse. Mosse looked at me through and through, with his cigarette-case in his ’and. Then ’e jerks out ’arf a dozen—best Turkish—on the table an’ exits. I pinched ’em an’ divvied with Macklin.
“‘You see ’ow it works,’ says Macklin. ‘Could you ’ave invested a Bradbury to better advantage?’
“‘So far, no,’ I says. ‘Otherwise, though, if they start provin’ an’ tryin’ me, I’m a dead bird. There must be a lot more to this Janeite game.’
“’Eaps an’ ’eaps,’ he says. ‘But to show you the sort of ’eart I ’ave, I’ll communicate you all the ’Igher Degrees among the Janeites, includin’ the Charges, for another Bradbury; but you’ll ’ave to work, Dobbin.’”
“’Pretty free with your Bradburys, wasn’t you?” Anthony grunted disapprovingly.
“What odds? Ac-tually, Gander told us, we couldn’t expect to av’rage more than six weeks’ longer apiece, an’, any’ow, I never regretted it. But make no mistake—the preparation was somethin’ cruel. In the first place, I come under Macklin for direct instruction re Jane.”
“Oh! Jane was real, then?” Anthony glanced for an instant at me as he put the question. “I couldn’t quite make that out.”