Part 44 (2/2)

”Terrible things!”

PART FOUR

MABEL--EFFIE--NONA

CHAPTER I

I

Said Hapgood--that garrulous Hapgood, solicitor, who first in this book spoke of Sabre to a mutual friend--said Hapgood, seated in the comfortable study of his fiat, to that same friend, staying the night:

”Well, now, old man, about Sabre. Well, I tell you it's a funny business--a dashed funny business, the position old Puzzlehead Sabre has got himself into. Of course you, with your coa.r.s.e and sordid instincts, will say it's just what it appears to be and a very old story at that.

Whereas to me, with my exquisitely delicate susceptibilities.... No, don't throw that, old man. Sorry. I'll be serious. What I want just to kick off with is that you know as well as I do that I've never been the sort of chap who wept he knows not why; I've never nursed a tame gazelle or any of that sort of stuff. In fact I've got about as much sentiment in me as there is in a pound of lard. But when I see this poor beggar Sabre as he is now, and when I hear him talk as he talked to me about his position last week, and when I see how grey and ill he looks, hobbling about on his old stick, well, I tell you, old man, I get--well, look here, here it is from the Let Go.

”Look here, this is April, April, 1918, by all that's Hunnish--dashed nearly four years of this infernal war. Well, old Sabre got knocked out in France just about five months ago, back in November. He copped it twice--shoulder and knee. Shoulder nothing much; knee pretty bad.

Thought they'd have to take his leg off, one time. Thought better of it, thanks be; patched him up; discharged him from the Army; and sent him home--very groggy, only just able to put the bad leg to the ground, crutches, and going to be a stick and a bit of a limp all his life. Poor old Puzzlehead. Think yourself lucky you were a Conscientious Objector, old man.... Oh, d.a.m.n you, that hurt.

”Very well. That's as he was when I first saw him again. Just making first attempts in the stick and limp stage, poor beggar. That was back in February. Early in February. Mark the date, as they say in the detective stories. I can't remember what the date was, but never you mind. You just mark it. Early in February, two months ago. There was good old me down in Tidborough on business--good old me doing the heavy London solicitor in a provincial town--they always put down a red carpet for me at the station, you know; rather decent, don't you think?--and remembering about old Sabre having been wounded and discharged, blew into Fortune, East and Sabre's (business wasn't with them this time) for news of him.

”Of course he wasn't there. Saw old Fortune and the man Twyning and found them in regard to Sabre about as genial and communicative as a maiden aunt over a married sister's new dress. Old Fortune looking like a walking pulpit in a thundercloud--I should say he'd make about four of me round the equator; and mind you, a chap stopped me in the street the other day and offered me a job as Beefeater outside a moving-picture show: yes, fact, I was wretchedly annoyed about it--and the man Twyning with a lean and hungry look like Ca.s.sius, or was it Judas Iscariot?

Well, like Ca.s.sius out of a job or Judas Iscariot in the middle of one, anyway. That's Twyning's sort. Chap I never cottoned on to a bit.

They'd precious little to say about Sabre. Sort of handed out the impression that he'd been out of the business so long that really they weren't much in touch with his doings. Rather rotten, I thought it, seeing that the poor beggar had done his bit in the war and done it pretty thoroughly too. They said that really they hardly knew when he'd be fit to get back to work again; not just yet awhile, anyway. And, yes, he was at home over at Penny Green, so far as they knew,--in the kind of tone that they didn't know much and cared less: at least, that was the impression they gave me; only my fancy, I daresay, as the girl said when she thought the soldier sat a bit too close to her in the tram.

”Well, I'd nothing to do till my train pulled out in the afternoon, so I hopped it over to Penny Green Garden Home on the railway and walked down to old Sabre's to scoop a free lunch off him. Found him a bit down the road from his house trying out this game leg of his. By Jove, he was no end bucked to see me. Came bounding along, dot and carry one, beaming all over his old phiz, and wrung my honest hand as if he was Robinson Crusoe discovering Man Friday on a desert island. I know I'm called Popular Percy by thousands who can only admire me from afar, but I tell you old Sabre fairly overwhelmed me. And talk! He simply jabbered. I said, 'By Jove, Sabre, one would think you hadn't met any one for a month the way you're unbelting the sacred rites of welcome.' He laughed and said, 'Well, you see, I'm a bit tied to a post with this leg of mine.'

”'How's the wife?' said I.

”'She's fine,' said he. 'You'll stay to lunch? I say, Hapgood, you will stay to lunch, won't you?'

”I told him that's what I'd come for; and he seemed no end relieved,--so relieved that I think I must have c.o.c.ked my eye at him or something, because he said in an apologetic sort of way, 'I mean, because my wife will be delighted. It's a bit dull for her nowadays, only me and always me, crawling about more or less helpless.'

”It struck me afterwards--oh, well, never mind that now. I said, 'I suppose she's making no end of a fuss over you now, hero of the war, and all that sort of thing?'

”'Oh, rather!' says old Sabre, and a minute or two later, as if he hadn't said it heartily enough, 'Oh, rather. Rather, I should think so.'”

II

”Well, we staggered along into the house, old Sabre talking away like a soda-water bottle just uncorked, and he took me into a room on the ground floor where they'd put up a bed for him, him not being able to do the stairs, of course. 'This is my--my den,' he introduced it, 'where I sit about and read and try to do a bit of work.'

”There didn't look to be much signs of either that I could see, and I said so. And old Sabre, who'd been hobbling about the room in a rather uncomfortable sort of way, exclaimed suddenly, 'I say, Hapgood, it's absolutely ripping having you here talking like this. I never can settle down properly in this room, and I've got a jolly place upstairs where all my books and things are.'

”'Let's go up then,' I said.

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