‘Are you going to leave me up here all day?’ said the old man.

Pyecroft lifted him down and he hobbled into the back room.

‘It’s his corns,’ Pyecroft explained.  ’You can’t shine corny feet—­and he hasn’t had his breakfast.’

‘I haven’t had mine either,’ I said.

‘Breakfast for two more, uncle,’ Pyecroft sang out.

‘Go out an’ buy it then,’ was the answer, ‘or else it’s half-rations.’

Pyecroft turned to Leggatt, gave him his marketing orders, and despatched him with the coppers.

‘I have got four new tyres on my car,’ I began impressively.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Pyecroft.  ’You have, and I will say’—­he patted my car’s bonnet—­’you earned ’em.’

‘I want to know why—­,’ I went on.

’Quite justifiable.  You haven’t noticed anything in the papers, have you?’

‘I’ve only just landed.  I haven’t seen a paper for weeks.’

’Then you can lend me a virgin ear.  There’s been a scandal in the Junior Service—­the Army, I believe they call ’em.’

A bag of coffee-beans pitched on the counter.  ‘Roast that,’ said the uncle from within.

Pyecroft rigged a small coffee-roaster, while I took down the shutters, and sold a young lady in curl-papers two bunches of mixed greens and one soft orange.

‘Sickly stuff to handle on an empty stomach, ain’t it?’ said Pyecroft.

‘What about my new tyres?’ I insisted.

’Oh, any amount.  But the question is’—­he looked at me steadily—­’is this what you might call a court-martial or a post-mortem inquiry?’

‘Strictly a post-mortem,’ said I.

‘That being so,’ said Pyecroft, ’we can rapidly arrive at facts.  Last Thursday—­the shutters go behind those baskets—­last Thursday at five bells in the forenoon watch, otherwise ten-thirty A.M., your Mr. Leggatt was discovered on Westminster Bridge laying his course for the Old Kent Road.’

‘But that doesn’t lead to Southampton,’ I interrupted.

’Then perhaps he was swinging the car for compasses.  Be that as it may, we found him in that latitude, simultaneous as Jules and me was ong route for Waterloo to rejoin our respective ships—­or Navies I should say.  Jules was a permissionaire, which meant being on leaf, same as me, from a French cassowary-cruiser at Portsmouth.  A party of her trusty and well-beloved petty officers ’ad been seeing London, chaperoned by the R.C.  Chaplain.  Jules ’ad detached himself from the squadron and was cruisin’ on his own when I joined him, in company of copious lady-friends. But, mark you, your Mr. Leggatt drew the line at the girls.  Loud and long he drew it.’

‘I’m glad of that,’ I said.

’You may be.  He adopted the puristical formation from the first.  “Yes,” he said, when we was annealing him at—­but you wouldn’t know the pub—­“I am going to Southampton,” he says, “and I’ll stretch a point to go via Portsmouth; but,” says he, “seeing what sort of one hell of a time invariably trarnspires when we cruise together, Mr. Pyecroft, I do not feel myself justified towards my generous and long-suffering employer in takin’ on that kind of ballast as well.”  I assure you he considered your interests.’