CHAPTER X
A letter came from my Quartermaster-Sergeant.
"We have been having a busy time lately. Nothing else but marching and fighting, and the regiment was in the great attack described correctly in the London papers of the 15th under the heading of 'British Check.' But I am pleased to be able to tell you that another attack has taken place, which proved a huge success, and the advantage is being followed up at the time of writing.
"Would you like to send me two re-fills for my electric lamp; address in the Strand enclosed. It is difficult work to find one's way about at night on unfamiliar ground. Hope you are keeping well and fit, as it leaves me at present."
There was the strike on with the tramway men, and I had to go by rail to make the purchase. The train went to Cannon Street only, and in running across there from one platform to another, I nearly came into collision with Guard Richards who was also in a hurry.
"Caught sight of your Miss Muriel t'other evening," he called out.
"Where," I demanded stopping, "and how was she, and what is she doing?"
William Richards had disappeared through one of the barriers, and did not hear my question. It was something, however, to know that the adventurous girl was still alive.
At the shop in the Strand I put the usual inquiry to the attendant—"How do you find business?"—and he said he found nothing to complain about, and I mentioned that I, too, had no cause to grumble. Hedging slightly, he remarked that he felt sorry that in the old days, before the war, he had devoted so much time and money to a favourite hobby; his wife—"She's got a bitter way of talking when she likes!"—aided and encouraged by her mother, never failed, it appeared, to hold him up to ridicule of an evening when he returned home, to take supper. I had given a few vague words of sympathy, and the counsel to take no notice, and was leaving when he happened to say that anybody who once began to collect old furniture was considered by non-collectors as on the road to Colney Hatch. Within ten minutes, I had promised to wait for him near the post office, and journey northwards in order to look at his stock, and to see whether I felt inclined to make an offer, and take the whole lot off his hands. There would have been less celerity over the early part of the transaction but that, as I explained to him, it was rarely I found myself so near to his district, and, as he explained to me, he had, to appease his wife and her relatives, given the assurance that he was taking active steps to get rid of the articles which crowded the rooms. On the way, he suddenly expressed the wish that I had been a member of his own sex. He did not know what his wife would say when she found he had brought a lady, unknown to her, into the house. He expressed the view that if the Zeppelins ever dared to come over London, they would receive from her as good as they gave.