“I’m sorry, Phineas. As you say, you’re my guest. And as to your uniform, God knows I honour every man who wears it.”
“That’s taking things in the right spirit,” Phineas conceded graciously, helping himself to another glass of wine. “And the right spirit is a great healer of differences. I’ll not go so far as to deny that there is an element of justice in your apportionment of blame. There may, on various occasions, have been some small dereliction of duty. But you’ll have been observing that in the recent exposition of my philosophy I have not laboured the point of duty to disproportionate exaggeration.”
Doggie lit a cigarette. His fingers were still shaking. “I’m glad you own up. It’s a sign of grace.”
“Ay,” said Phineas, “no man is altogether bad. In spite of everything, I’ve always entertained a warm affection for you, laddie, and when I saw you staring at bogies round about the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral my heart went out to you. You didn’t look over-happy.”
Doggie, always responsive to human kindness, was touched. He felt a note of sincerity in McPhail’s tone. Perhaps he had judged him harshly, overlooking the plea in extenuation which Phineas had set up—that in every man there must be some saving remnant of goodness.
“I wasn’t happy, Phineas,” he said; “I was as miserable an outcast as could be found in London, and when a fellow’s down and out, you must forgive him for speaking more bitterly than he ought.”
“Don’t I know, laddie? Don’t I know?” said Phineas sympathetically. He reached for the cigar-box. “Do you mind if I take another? Perhaps two—one to smoke afterwards, in memory of this meeting. It is a long time since my lips touched a thing so gracious as a real Havana.”
“Take a lot,” said Doggie generously, “I don’t really like cigars. I only bought them because I thought they might be stronger than cigarettes.”
Phineas filled his pockets. “You can pay no greater compliment to a man’s honesty of purpose,” said he, “than by taking him at his word. And now,” he continued, when he had carefully lit the cigar he had first chosen, “let us review the entire situation. What about our good friends at Durdlebury? What about your uncle, the Very Reverend the Dean, against whom I bear no ill-will, though I do not say that his ultimate treatment of me was not over-hasty—what about him? If you call upon me to put my almost fantastically variegated experience of life at your disposal, and advise you in this crisis, so I must ask you to let me know the exact conditions in which you find yourself.”
Doggie smiled once again, finding something diverting and yet stimulating in the calm assurance of Private McPhail.