"Whereabouts?"
"In a corner table on the first floor."
"Yes; go on."
"All the time we were having lunch we argued as to whether I was going to see him off or not. I wanted to go down to Southampton with him and see him sail, but he wouldn't let me come even to the boat-train at Waterloo. He said there wasn't any-thing in the world he hated like being seen off, especially when he was going a long way. I remember he said, 'If a chap's not going far, then there's no need, and if he's going to the other side of the world, then there's no good. What's a few minutes more or less? Then in the afternoon we went to the Woffington to see Didn't You Know? "
"What!" said Grant. "You went to the show at the Woffington in the afternoon?"
"Yes; that was arranged a long time be-forehand. Bert had booked seats. Stalls. It was a sort of final do — celebration. At the interval he told me that he was going to join the pit queue for the evening performance as soon as we got out — he had gone a lot to Didn't You Know? It was a sort of craze; in fact, we both went a lot — and said that we'd say goodbye then. It seemed a poor way to me to say goodbye to a pal you'd known as well as I knew Bert, but he was always a bit unaccountable, and anyhow, if he didn't want me, I wasn't going to insist on being with him. So we said goodbye outside the front of the Woffington, and I went back to Brixton to unpack my things. I was feeling awfully fed up, because Bert and I had been such pals that I hadn't any others worth mentioning, and it was lonely at Brixton after Mrs. Everett's."
"Didn't you think of going with Sorrell?"
"I wanted to, all right, but I hadn't the money. I hoped for a while that he'd offer to lend me it. He knew that I'd pay him back all right. But he never did. I was a bit sore about that too. Every way I was pretty fed up. And Bert himself didn't appear to be happy about it. He hung on to my hand like anything when we were saying goodbye. And he gave me a little packet and said I was to promise not to open it till the day after to-morrow — that was the day after he sailed. I thought it was a sort of farewell present, and didn't think anything more about it. It was a little white packet done up in paper like jewellers use, and as a matter of fact I thought it was a watch. My watch was always going crazy. He used to say, 'If you don't get a new watch, Jerry, you won't be in time for kingdom come even. "
Lamont choked suddenly and stopped. He carefully wiped away the steam on the window and then resumed:
"Well, when I was unpacking my things in Brixton, I missed my revolver. I never used the thing, of course. It was just a war souvenir. I had a commission, though you mightn't think it. And I tell you straight I'd rather a thousand times be for it wire-cutting, or anything else like that, than be hunted round London by the police. It isn't so bad in the open. More like a game, somehow. But in London it's like being in a trap. Didn't you feel that it wasn't so deadly awful out in the country somehow?"