"I mean your leave will be up."
"Oh, I'm out of a job just now."
So it was genuine blatant indifference. I looked round for something with which to slay him.
"I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if I shall ever find my tennis legs again."
"Have you lost them?" I asked sarcastically.
"I'm afraid so—er—that is, of course, only one of them really."
"Only one of them?" I repeated vaguely.
"Yes, Fritzie got it at Jutland; but these new mark gadgets are top-hole. I can nearly dance the fox-trot with mine already."
He stretched out the gadget in question and patted it affectionately.
The ensuing moment I count as the worst one I have ever known. I had forgotten the Navy. My only excuse is that nowadays, owing to its urgent and unadvertised affairs, we seldom have an opportunity in our village of meeting the Senior Service. But I feel convinced that the irascible Methuselah on the croquet ground was purposely and maliciously guilty of suppressio veri.