"I feel that I wish I had known you all my life."
"Very nicely phrased," he said, approvingly. "Second, in regard to taking plenty of time over a meal, and having it served up politely instead of being flung at you. People can say what they like," contended the Quartermaster-Sergeant, earnestly, "but comfort isn't a thing to be despised. Out there, all these months, I've dreamt over and over again, in my waking hours, of a nice little house, Forest Hill way, and a nice little garden with scarlet runners growing near the nice little wooden palings, and a nice little wife—"
"Your ambitions appear to be on a small scale."
"Don't misunderstand me," he begged. "I don't mean she's got to be a dwarf. My idea has always been someone about your own height." He helped himself, with some confusion to enough mustard to serve a regiment. "Tell me if I'm talking too much," he begged. "I get so much into the habit of laying down the law that I'm inclined to forget myself."
"That doesn't matter," I remarked, "so long as you don't forget me." I declare I said this only for the sake of keeping the conversation going: he put his large hand across the table impetuously, and gripped mine.
"Don't you ever keep awake at nights," he said, "worrying about that. I shall recollect this day that we're having together when everything else has vanished from my memory."
I think we both recognised that we were travelling faster than the rules permit; for the remainder of the lunch we were more guarded in speech. He talked about his father and mother, and I made some allusions to the Hillier family. It seemed he had the notion that I was a friend and an equal: he assured me Master John had once spoken of me in a way to support this, and one could not help feeling it was good of the lad to convey the impression. George Cartwright had a cigar, recommended by the head waiter as of a brand smoked by all the nobs, and I followed the head waiter out of the room, and settled the bill. The head waiter said, with great heartiness, "Thank you, miss; thank you very much indeed. Wish there was more like you!"
I expected—or feared—that George Cartwright would want to hurry off. Mentioning that his latest recollection of Greenwich Park was connected with a Sunday School treat—
"Lord!" he said, setting his cap at the mirror, "but I've learnt a bit since those days. And most of it wasn't worth the learning!"
He suggested that the afternoon was fine enough to excuse a stroll up the hill to the Observatory. We walked first along the narrow pavement near the river, came to the old Trafalgar Hotel, now an Aged Merchant Seamen's Institution, and Cartwright, by request, gave to the old chaps standing outside, the latest news of the war. Then we strolled towards the Park.