"You know, old chap," he said with charming candour, as I saw him off from the doorstep, "you must remind me to pay up that two quid some time. I keep forgetting, and when I do remember, like now, I haven't any money to do it with. Cheero!" The door clicked and I swooned.
It was very difficult; I could not even make up my mind whether my best policy was to stalk Herbert with vigilance or to avoid him as persistently as discipline allowed. On the one hand he wasn't the cheque-book kind of man and he wouldn't pay me unless he saw me. Contrariwise, he wouldn't even if he did, and whenever he saw me my original loan of ten gold sovereigns might continue its rapid decline. Finally I decided to abstain from his society.
Shortly after this momentous decision the War Office sent him off to some remote part of the country, and for many months our financial relations remained unaltered—at any rate in my own estimation. He was still far away when Adela II arrived, so we did our best to hush her up; we thought that if we could smuggle her to, say, the age of ten and send her to school Herbert couldn't possibly come and congratulate us about her. That only shows how much we didn't know; for Herbert procured some leave three weeks later and was excitedly mounting our stairs within a few hours.
"P'r'aps," whispered Adela bravely as he was being announced, "he'll forget about money—p'r'aps he'll even put it up a bit."
I smiled cynically, and was justified ten minutes later, when Herbert's conscience, troubled and apologetic, reminded him about that guinea he owed me.
At the christening it fell to half-a-quid, and, according to Herbert's latest allegation, it is only his rotten memory for postal-orders that prevents him from sending me that dollar at once.
And so, precariously, the matter rested till to-day, when the final blow fell from the War Office. Herbert and I are to proceed to France together next Monday. On that day, if I am ingenious and agile enough not to meet him before, we ought to be about all square; after that, as far as I can see, there will be an inevitable moment when Herbert will turn to me with, "I say, old fellow, you can't let me have that ten bob you touched me for the other day, can you? Hate to ask you, but I haven't got a sou ..." But I won't—no, I won't. I will let my imaginary debt mount up, I will let it increase even at the rate at which Herbert's has decreased, but I will not pay it. Herbert, of course, will always be kind to me about it, for he is a generous creature; and every time we go into action he will probably wring my hand and beg me not to worry about it any more.
"Old man," he will be saying on the twenty-ninth occasion, "if I got done in, promise you won't bother about that thousand pounds you owe me—remember you're to think of it as paid."
I shall remember all right.