It isn’t so much his four and a half teeth I’m thinking of, nor is it the twenty-seven overgrown and badly managed hairs which wander about at the back of his bald head and give him the look of a dissipated monk.  It is just his intrinsic worth, clearly evidenced in everything about him.  Obviously a man of parts, he has brains, a stout heart and an unfailing humour.  Blessed with a keen perception, he delights those who can understand him with his singularly happy and apt turn of speech.  You will, I think, accept my word as an officer and a gentleman that he is unique.

Anticipating the welcome greeting of my wife and many pleasant hours to be spent in discussing with my son the things which matter, I put on all my waterproofs, gave the porter a twenty-five centime piece, which he mistook for a shilling, even as earlier on I had myself been led to mistake it for a franc, and hastened home.

The welcome greeting seemed all right, but I had not been long in the company of my wife before I discovered that Another had come between us.  I had not been long with my son before I discovered who that Other was....  I determined to have it out with him at once.  Feeling that the situation was one for tactics, I manoeuvred for position and, to get him entirely at a disadvantage, I surprised him in his bath and taxed him with his infamy.  I addressed him more in sorrow than in anger.  I told him I was well aware of his personal charm, but in this instance I was bound to comment unfavourably on the use he had made of it.  The very last thing I had expected of him was that at, or indeed before, the early age of one he would be stealing the affections of another man’s wife.

He was not ashamed or nonplussed; he was not even embarrassed by his immediate environment.  In fact he turned it to his own advantage, for his hairs, duly watered and soaped down on to his cranium, lost their rakish look and gave him the appearance of a gentleman of perfect integrity, great intellect and no little financial stability.  As between one man and another, he did not attempt to deny the truth of my assertion, gave me to understand, with a jovial smile, that such little incidents must always be expected as long as humanity remains human, and repudiated all personal responsibility in this instance.  He even went so far as to suggest that it was the woman’s fault; it was always she who was running after him, and his only offence had been that of being too chivalrous abruptly to repel her advances.  I confess I was painfully surprised at the attitude he adopted; it consisted in putting his foot in one half of his mouth and breathing stentorously through the other moiety.  And when he started making eyes at the nurse I was too shocked to stay any longer.

Never a man to take a thing sitting down, I waited till the next morning for my revenge.  As the trustee of his future wealth I had him in my power.  Stepping across to the nearest bank I borrowed an immense sum of money in his name and passed it all on to the Government, then and there, to be spent, inter alia, on the B.E.F.  And what’s more, I told him to his face that I’d done it.  What reply do you suppose he made?  He merely called for a drink.