“I can’t recall an instance.”
When driven to contemplation of his own isolation, he reflected that all the time there had been a living link between himself and this upheaved world. Every week, rain or fine, through snow or dust, Quong Ho had visited the little town.
“When did the news of the war become general in Water-End?” he asked.
He had to put the question in two or three different forms before his puzzled informants could perceive its drift, for they could not conceive it being the question of an intelligent man. He could not yet realize the electric shock that convulsed the land from end to end on the declaration of war. He could not gauge the immediate disruption of social life throughout the country. The calling up of reservists, the mobilization of the Territorial forces alone affected instantly every community, no matter how remote from centres of industry. The queer straits to which every community was reduced, owing to the closing of the banks during that fateful August week, had also brought the reality of the war home to every individual. Then the issue of Treasury notes. The recruiting. From the very first day of the war, Water-End, they told him, was as much agog with it all as London itself. From the beginning the town had been plastered with patriotic posters. The mayor for the first months had exhibited the latest telegrams outside the town hall. There had been a camp of Territorials some few miles away and the High Street had reeked of war. Government war notices met the least observant eye in post office, bank and railway station.
“If what you say is true,” said Baltazar, “how could Quong Ho have come here every week and failed to understand what was going on? Not only is he a master of English, but he’s a man of acute intellect.”
“That,” replied the doctor, “you must ask Quong Ho when his intellect has recovered from its present eclipse.”
“But the fellow must have known all along,” Baltazar persisted. “Come now,”—he sat up in bed impulsively—“he must, mustn’t he?”
“I should have thought that a negro from Central Africa, who only spoke Central African, would have guessed,” replied the doctor.
“Then why the devil didn’t he tell me?”
“I’m afraid I must refer you to my previous answer,” said the doctor.