“Old Mr. Penrose.  Do you know him?  Lives in High Street, near the Irechesters.”

“I think I know him by sight.  So he entertained you with that old yarn, did he?  And that same old yarn probably accounts for the nocturnal examination which you saw going on.  It was a little excitement for you, to reward you for your politeness to Miss Walford!”

Alec flushed, but answered frankly:  “I needed no reward for that.”  His feelings got the better of him; he was very full of feelings that night, and wanted to be sympathized with.  “Beaumaroy, do you know that girl’s story?” Beaumaroy shook his head, and listened to it.  Captain Alec ended on his old note:  “To think of the scoundrel using the King’s uniform like that!”

“Rotten!  But, er, don’t raise your voice.”  He pointed to the ceiling, smiling, and went on without further comment on Cynthia’s ill-usage.  “I suppose you intend to stick to the army, Naylor?”

“Yes, certainly I do.”

“I’m discharged.  After I came out of hospital they gave me sick leave, and constantly renewed it; and when the armistice came they gave me my discharge.  They put it down to my wound, of course, but—­well, I gathered the impression that I was considered no great loss.”  He had finished his pipe, and was now smiling reflectively.

Captain Alec did not smile.  Indeed he looked rather pained; he was remembering General Punnit’s story:  military inefficiency, even military imperfection, was for him no smiling matter.  Beaumaroy did not appear to notice his disapproving gravity.

“So I was at a loose end.  I had sold up my business in Spain; I was there six or seven years, just as Captain—­Captain—?  Oh, Cranster, yes!—­was in Bogota—­when I joined up, and had no particular reason for going back there—­and, incidentally, no money to go back with.  So I took on this job, which came to me quite accidentally.  I went into a Piccadilly bar one evening, and found my old man there, rather excited and declaiming a good deal of rot; seemed to have the war a bit on his brain.  They started in to guy him, and I think one or two meant to hustle him, and perhaps take his money off him.  I took his part, and there was a bit of a shindy.  In the end I saw him home to his lodgings—­he had a room in London for the night—­and, to cut a long story short, we palled up, and he asked me to come and live with him.  So here I am, and with me my Sancho Panza, the worthy ex-Sergeant Hooper.  Perhaps I may be forgiven for impliedly comparing myself to Don Quixote, since that gentleman, besides his other characteristics, is generally agreed to have been mad.”

“Your Sancho Panza’s no beauty,” remarked the Captain drily.

“And no saint either.  Kicked out of the Service, and done time.  That between ourselves.”

“Then why the devil do you have the fellow about?”

“Beggars mustn’t be choosers.  Besides, I’ve a penchant for failures.”