"Very well. That's as he was when I first saw him again. Just making first attempts in the stick and limp stage, poor beggar. That was back in February. Early in February. Mark the date, as they say in the detective stories. I can't remember what the date was, but never you mind. You just mark it. Early in February, two months ago. There was good old me down in Tidborough on business--good old me doing the heavy London solicitor in a provincial town--they always put down a red carpet for me at the station, you know; rather decent, don't you think?--and remembering about old Sabre having been wounded and discharged, blew into Fortune, East and Sabre's (business wasn't with them this time) for news of him.
"Of course he wasn't there. Saw old Fortune and the man Twyning and found them in regard to Sabre about as genial and communicative as a maiden aunt over a married sister's new dress. Old Fortune looking like a walking pulpit in a thundercloud--I should say he'd make about four of me round the equator; and mind you, a chap stopped me in the street the other day and offered me a job as Beefeater outside a moving-picture show: yes, fact, I was wretchedly annoyed about it--and the man Twyning with a lean and hungry look like Cassius, or was it Judas Iscariot? Well, like Cassius out of a job or Judas Iscariot in the middle of one, anyway. That's Twyning's sort. Chap I never cottoned on to a bit. They'd precious little to say about Sabre. Sort of handed out the impression that he'd been out of the business so long that really they weren't much in touch with his doings. Rather rotten, I thought it, seeing that the poor beggar had done his bit in the war and done it pretty thoroughly too. They said that really they hardly knew when he'd be fit to get back to work again; not just yet awhile, anyway. And, yes, he was at home over at Penny Green, so far as they knew,--in the kind of tone that they didn't know much and cared less: at least, that was the impression they gave me; only my fancy, I daresay, as the girl said when she thought the soldier sat a bit too close to her in the tram.
"Well, I'd nothing to do till my train pulled out in the afternoon, so I hopped it over to Penny Green Garden Home on the railway and walked down to old Sabre's to scoop a free lunch off him. Found him a bit down the road from his house trying out this game leg of his. By Jove, he was no end bucked to see me. Came bounding along, dot and carry one, beaming all over his old phiz, and wrung my honest hand as if he was Robinson Crusoe discovering Man Friday on a desert island. I know I'm called Popular Percy by thousands who can only admire me from afar, but I tell you old Sabre fairly overwhelmed me. And talk! He simply jabbered. I said, 'By Jove, Sabre, one would think you hadn't met any one for a month the way you're unbelting the sacred rites of welcome.' He laughed and said, 'Well, you see, I'm a bit tied to a post with this leg of mine.'