But no anticipatory gleam lit the face of his new friend. It was in fact one of those faces into which words sink as into a sandbank—a white, puffy, long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness.
"I thought I should have died of laughing," the other resumed, utterly unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.
In the far corner I kept my eye on my book but my ears open. I could see that he was rushing to his doom.
"We were being paid," he went on, "and the quartermaster asked one of the men if he did not wish sixpence to be deducted to go to his wife. The man said, 'No.' 'Why not?' the quartermaster asked. The man said he didn't think his wife would need it or miss it. 'You'd better be generous about it,' the quartermaster said; 'every little helps, you know.'"
He paused. "What do you think the man said to that?" he asked his new friend. "He said," he hurried on, "'I don't think I'll send it. You see, I allow her four thousand a year as it is.'"
The raconteur laughed loudly and leaned back with the satisfaction—or at least some of it—of one who has told a funny story and told it well.
But the other did not laugh at all. His face remained the dull thing it was.
"You see," said the story-teller, explaining the point, "there are all sorts in the Army now, and this man was a toff. He was so rich that he could afford to allow his wife four thousand pounds a year. Four thousand pounds! Do you see?"
"Oh, yes, I see that. He must have been very rich. Why was he just a private?"
"I don't know."