Part 40 (1/2)

”I don't think that's quite fair,” I said. ”After all, it's YOUR bag. If you take it for an hour and a half, I don't mind taking the other half.”

”Your shoes are heavier than mine, anyhow.”

”My pyjamas weigh less. Such a light blue as they are.”

”Ah, but my tooth-brush has lost seven bristles. That makes a difference.”

”What I say is, let every man carry his own bag. This is a rotten business, John. I don't wish to be anything but polite, but for a silly a.s.s commend me to the owner of that brown thing.”

John took no notice and went on packing.

”I shall buy a collar in the town,” he said.

”Better let me do it for you. You would only go getting an invitation to a garden-party from the haberdasher. And that would mean another eight miles with a portmanteau.”

”There we are,” said John, as he closed the bag, ”quite small and light. Now, who'll take the first hour?”

”We'd better toss, if you're quite sure you won't carry it all the way. Tails. Just my luck.”

John looked out of the window and then at his watch.

”They say two to three is the hottest hour of the day,” he said. ”It will be cooler later on. I shall put you in.”

I led the way up the cliffs with that wretched bag. I insisted upon that condition anyhow--that the man with the bag should lead the way. I wasn't going to have John das.h.i.+ng off at six miles an hour, and leaving himself only two miles at the end.

”But you can come and talk to me,” I said to him after ten minutes of it. ”I only meant that I was going to set the pace.”

”No, no, I like watching you. You do it so gracefully. This is my man,” he explained to some children who were blackberrying. ”He is just carrying my bag over the cliffs for me. No, he is not very strong.”

”You wait,” I growled.

John laughed. ”Fifty minutes more,” he said. And then after a little silence, ”I think the bag-carrying profession is overrated. What made you take it up, my lad? The drink? Ah, just so. Dear, dear, what a lesson to all of us.”

”There's a good time coming,” I murmured to myself, and changed hands for the eighth time.

”I don't care what people say,” said John, argumentatively; ”brown and blue DO go together. If you wouldn't mind--”

For the tenth time I rammed the sharp corner of the bag into the back of my knee.

”There, that's what I mean. You see it perfectly like that--the brown against the blue of the flannel. Thank you very much.”

I stumbled up a steep little bit of slippery gra.s.s, and told myself that in three-quarters of an hour I would get some of my own back again. He little knew how heavy that bag could become.

”They say,” said John to the heavens, ”that if you have weights in your hands you can jump these little eminences much more easily. I suppose one hand alone doesn't do. What a pity he didn't tell me before--I would have lent him another bag with pleasure.”

”n.o.body likes blackberries more than I do,” said John. ”But even I would hesitate to come out here on a hot afternoon and fill a great brown bag with blackberries, and then carry them eight miles home.