"My dear fellow," said he, "so long as you regard me as an honest cuss, nothing matters in the world."
I went to bed with the conviction that he was as honest a cuss as I had ever met.
Chapter II
Our hosts, the Verity-Stewarts, were pleasant people, old friends of mine, inhabiting a Somerset manor-house which had belonged to their family since the days of Charles the Second. They were proud of their descent; the Stewart being hyphenated to the first name by a genealogically enthusiastic Verity of a hundred years ago; but the alternative to their motto suggested by the son of the house, Captain Charles Verity-Stewart, "The King can do no wrong," found no favour in the eyes of his parents, who had lived remote from the democratic humour of the officers of the New Army.
It was to this irreverent Cavalier, convalescent at home from a machine-gun bullet through his shoulder, and hero-worshipper of his Colonel, that Andrew Lackaday owed his shy appearance at Mansfield Court. He was proud of the boy, a gallant and efficient soldier; Lady Verity-Stewart had couched her invitation in such cordial terms that a refusal would have been curmudgeonly; and the Colonel was heartily tired of spending his hard-won leave horribly alone in London.
Perhaps I may seem to be explaining that which needs no explanation. It is not so. In England Colonel Lackaday found himself in the position of many an officer from the Dominions overseas. He had barely an acquaintance. Hitherto his leave had been spent in France. But one does not take a holiday in France when the War Officer commands attention at Whitehall. He was very glad to go to the War Office, suspecting the agreeable issue of his visit. Yet all the same he was a stranger in a strange land, living on the sawdust and warmed-up soda-water of unutterable boredom. He had spent--so he said--his happiest hours in London, at the Holborn Empire. Three evenings had he devoted to its excellent but not soul-enthralling entertainment.
"In the name of goodness, why?" I asked puzzled.
"There was a troupe of Japanese acrobats," said he. "In the course of a roving life one picks up picturesque acquaintances. Hosimura, the head of them, is a capital fellow."
This he told me later, for our friendship, begun when he was eight years old, had leaped into sudden renewal; but without any idea of exciting my commiseration. Yet it made me think.
That a prospective Brigadier-General should find his sole relief from solitude in the fugitive companionship of a Japanese acrobat seemed to me pathetic.