One day, walking with Peggy and Marmaduke in the garden, he said: “I wish I could get hold of that confounded fellow, Chipmunk!”
Partly through deference to the good Dean’s delicately hinted distaste for that upsetter of decorous households, and partly to allow his follower to attend to his own domestic affairs, he had left Chipmunk in London. Fifteen years ago Chipmunk had parted from a wife somewhere in the neighbourhood of the East India Docks. Both being illiterate, neither had since communicated with the other. As he had left her earning good money in a factory, his fifteen years’ separation had been relieved from anxiety as to her material welfare. A prudent, although a beer-loving man, he had amassed considerable savings, and it was the dual motive of sharing these with his wife and of protecting his patron from the ever-lurking perils of London, that had brought him across the seas. When Oliver had set him free in town, he was going in quest of his wife. But as he had forgotten the name of the street near the East India Docks where his wife lived, and the name of the factory in which she worked, the successful issue of the quest, in Oliver’s opinion, seemed problematical. The simple Chipmunk, however, was quite sanguine. He would run into her all right. As soon as he had found her he would let the Captain know. Up to the present he had not communicated with the Captain. He could give the Captain no definite address, so the Captain could not communicate with him. Chipmunk had disappeared into the unknown.
“Isn’t he quite capable of taking care of himself?” asked Peggy.
“I’m not so sure,” replied Oliver. “Besides, he’s hanging me up. I’m kind of responsible for him, and I’ve got sixty pounds of his money. It’s all I could do to persuade him not to stow the lot in his pocket, so as to divide it with Mrs. Chipmunk as soon as he saw her. I must find out what has become of the beggar before I move.”
“I suppose,” said Doggie, “you’re anxious now to get back to the South Seas?”
Oliver stared at him. “No, sonny, not till the war’s over.”
“Why, you wouldn’t be in any great danger out there, would you?”
Oliver laughed. “You’re the funniest duck that ever was, Doggie. I’ll never get to the end of you.” And he strolled away.
“What does he mean?” asked the bewildered Doggie.
“I think,” replied Peggy, smiling, “that he means he’s going to fight.”