'I have a very high opinion of the Territorials myself,' said Mr. Wontner above a glass of sherry. (Infant never lets us put bitters into anything above twenty years old.) 'But if you had any experience of the Service, you would find that the Average Army Man--'
Here The Infant suggested changing, and Ipps, before whom no human passion can assert itself, led Mr. Wontner away.
'Why the devil did you tell him I was on the Bench?' said Infant wrathfully to me. 'You know I ain't now. Why didn't he stay in his father's office? He's a raging blight!'
'Not a bit of it,' said Stalky cheerfully. 'He's a little shaken and excited. Probably Beetle annoyed him in the garage, but we must overlook that. We've contained him so far, and I'm going to nibble round his outposts at dinner. All you've got to do, Infant, is to remember you're a gentleman in your own house. Don't hop! You'll find it pretty difficult before dinner's over. I don't want to hear anything at all from you, Beetle.'
'But I'm just beginning to like him,' I said. 'Do let me play!'
'Not till I ask you. You'll overdo it. Poor old Dhurrah-bags! A scandal 'ud break him up!'
'But as long as a regiment has no say as to who joins it, it's bound to rag,' Infant began. 'Why--why, they varnished me when I joined!' He squirmed at the thought of it.
'Don't be owls! We ain't discussing principles! We've got to save the court of inquiry if we can,' said Stalky.
Five minutes later--at 7.45 to be precise--we four sat down to such a dinner as, I hold, only The Infant's cook can produce, with wines worthy of pontifical banquets. A man in the extremity of rage and injured dignity is precisely like a typhoid patient. He asks no questions, accepts what is put before him, and babbles in one key--very often of trifles. But food and drink are the very best of drugs. I think it was Heidsieck Dry Monopole '92--Stalky as usual stuck to Burgundy--that began to unlock Mr. Wontner's heart behind my shirt-front. Me he snubbed throughout, after the Oxford manner, because I had seen him in the sack, and he did not intend me to presume; but to Stalky and The Infant, while I admired the set of my dinner-jacket across his shoulders, he made his plans of revenge very clear indeed. He had even sketched out some of the paragraphs that were to appear in the papers, and if Stalky had allowed me to speak, I would have told him that they were rather neatly phrased.