When I reached England my feelings with regard to myself changed. I was no longer reticent about my rank. I displayed my uniform in a public restaurant, without any reserve. In consequence they'd only let me eat three-and-sixpence worth for my first meal. This time I was not so clever, it appeared, as I thought. I had erroneously supposed that by not being a civilian I should get more than two courses. As it was I got less, and so it was with a full heart and an empty stomach that I fell in for home. If I'd known I should have kept my waterproof on for luncheon.
Do you realise how dismal a thing it is for us to be separated from our own by a High Sea all these months and years? It ain't fair, Sir, it simply ain't fair. In my case there is not only a wife amongst wives, but also a son amongst sons. Now, Charles, I am the very last person to call a thing good merely because it is my own, nor am I that kind of fool who thinks all his geese are swans. If my son had a fault I should be the very first to notice and call attention to it. But he has not; dispassionately and from an entirely detached and impersonal view, I am bound to say that there is about him an outstanding merit which at once puts him on a different level from all others. 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.