"So did I."
She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece.
"How long would it take for a telegram to reach him?"
"You may be sure he has it by now," said I, "and it has given him a prodigious appetite for lunch."
Her face clouded over. "That horrid tinned stuff. It's so dangerous. I remember once Mary's aunt—or was it Cook's aunt—one of them any way—nearly died of eating tinned lobster—ptomaine poisoning. I've always told Leonard not to touch it.
"They don't give Colonels and V.C.s tinned lobster at Boulogne," I answered cheerfully. "He's living now on the fat of the land."
"Let us hope so," she sighed dubiously. "It's no use my sending out things for him, as they always go wrong. Some time ago I sent him three brace of grouse and three brace of partridges. He didn't acknowledge them for weeks, and then he said they were most handy things to kill Germans with, but were an expensive form of ammunition. I don't quite know what he meant—but at any rate they were not eatable when they arrived. Poor fellow!" She sighed again. "If only I knew what was the matter with him."
"It can't be much," I reassured her, "or you would have heard again. And this news will act like a sovereign remedy."
She patted the back of my hand with her plump palm. "You're always so sympathetic and comforting."
"I'm an old soldier, like Leonard," said I, "and never meet trouble halfway."