ity 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.

'You ought to be able to get whackin' damages out of 'em, into the
bargain,' said Stalky, after Mr. Wontner had outlined his
position legally.

'My de-ah sir,' Mr. Wontner applied himself to his glass, 'it isn't a
matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I assure you, we
Wontners'--he waved a well-kept hand--'do not stand in any need of
filthy lucre.' In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his
father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the
world dwelt on. Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at
The Infant's ankle. Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army
Man, and the desolating vacuity--I remember these words--of Army
Society, notably among its womenkind. It appeared there was some sort of
narrow convention in the Army against mentioning a woman's name at Mess.
We were much surprised at this--Stalky would not let me express my
surprise--but we took it from Mr. Wontner, who said we might, that it
was so. Next he touched on Colonels of the old school, and their
cognisance of tactics. Not that he himself pretended to any skill in
tactics, but after three years at the 'Varsity--none of us had had a
'Varsity education--a man insensibly contracted the habit of clear
thinking. At least, he could automatically co-ordinate his ideas, and
the jealousy of these muddle-headed Colonels was inconceivable. We would
understand that it was his duty to force on the retirement of his
Colonel, who had been in the conspiracy against him; to make his
Adjutant resign or exchange; and to give the half-dozen childish
subalterns who had vexed his dignity a chance to retrieve themselves in
other corps--West African