‘But I’d like you to,’ he interrupted.

’Then, would you mind telling me the Christian name of a girl who was insulted by a man called Clements?’

‘Moira,’ he whispered; and just then Mrs. Godfrey and Milly came to table with their shore-going hats on.

We did not tie up till noon, but the faithful Leggatt had intrigued his way down to the dock-edge, and beside him sat Malachi, wearing his collar of gold, or Leggatt makes it look so, as eloquent as Demosthenes.  Shend flinched a little when he saw him.  We packed Mrs. Godfrey and Milly into Attley’s car—­they were going with him to Mittleham, of course—­and drew clear across the railway lines to find England all lit and perfumed for spring.  Shend sighed with happiness.

‘D’you know,’ he said, ’if—­if you’d chucked me—­I should have gone down to my cabin after breakfast and cut my throat.  And now—­it’s like a dream—­a good dream, you know.’

We lunched with the other three at Romsey.  Then I sat in front for a little while to talk to my Malachi.  When I looked back, Shend was solidly asleep, and stayed so for the next two hours, while Leggatt chased Attley’s fat Daimler along the green-speckled hedges.  He woke up when we said good-bye at Mittleham, with promises to meet again very soon.

‘And I hope,’ said Mrs. Godfrey, ’that everything pleasant will happen to you.’

‘Heaps and heaps—­all at once,’ cried long, weak Milly, waving her wet handkerchief.

’I’ve just got to look in at a house near here for a minute to inquire about a dog,’ I said, ‘and then we will go home.’

‘I used to know this part of the world,’ he replied, and said no more till Leggatt shot past the lodge at the Sichliffes’s gate.  Then I heard him gasp.

Miss Sichliffe, in a green waterproof, an orange jersey, and a pinkish leather hat, was working on a bulb-border.  She straightened herself as the car stopped, and breathed hard.  Shend got out and walked towards her.  They shook hands, turned round together, and went into the house.  Then the dog Harvey pranced out corkily from under the lee of a bench.  Malachi, with one joyous swoop, fell on him as an enemy and an equal.  Harvey, for his part, freed from all burden whatsoever except the obvious duty of a man-dog on his own ground, met Malachi without reserve or remorse, and with six months’ additional growth to come and go on.

’Don’t check ’em!’ cried Leggatt, dancing round the flurry.  ’They’ve both been saving up for each other all this time.  It’ll do ’em worlds of good.’

‘Leggatt,’ I said, ’will you take Mr. Shend’s bag and suitcase up to the house and put them down just inside the door?  Then we will go on.’

So I enjoyed the finish alone.  It was a dead heat, and they licked each other’s jaws in amity till Harvey, one imploring eye on me, leaped into the front seat, and Malachi backed his appeal.  It was theft, but I took him, and we talked all the way home of r-rats and r-rabbits and bones and baths and the other basic facts of life.  That evening after dinner they slept before the fire, with their warm chins across the hollows of my ankles—­to each chin an ankle—­till I kicked them upstairs to bed.