could see that
without spectacles.

"I went over to him. You could have pushed _him_ off the seat with one
finger when he saw me. Except that you wouldn't have had any fingers
worth using as fingers, after he'd squeezed your hands as he squeezed
mine. Both of them. And his face like a shout on a sunny morning. Yes,
he was pleased. I like to think how jolly pleased the old chap was.

"I took him over to my wife, and my wife climbed all over him, and we
chatted round for a bit, and then I worked off my wife on a bunch of
people we knew and I got old Sabre on to a secluded bench and started in
on him. What on earth was he doing down at Brighton, and how were
things?

"He said 'Things...? Things are happening with me, Hapgood. Not to
me--with me. Happening pretty fierce and pretty quick. I'm right in the
middle of the most extraordinary, the most astounding, the most amazing
things. I had to get away from them for a bit. I simply had to. I came
down here for a week-end to get away from them and go on wrestling them
out when they weren't right under my eyes. I'm going back to-morrow.
Effie was all right--with her baby. She was glad I should go--glad for
me, I mean. Poor kid, poor kid. Top of her own misery, Hapgood, she's
miserable to death at what she says she's let me in for. She's always
crying about it. Crying. She's torn between knowing my house is the only
place where she can have her baby, between that and seeing what her
coming into the place has caused. She spends her time trying to do any
little thing she can to make me comfortable, hunts about for any little
thing she can do for me. It's pathetic, you know. At least, it's
pathetic to me. Jumped at this sudden idea of mine of getting away for a
couple of days. Said it would please her more than anything in the world
to know I was right away from it all for a bit. Fussed over me packing
up and all that, you know. Pathetic. Frightfully. Look, just to show you
how she hunts about for anything to do for me--said my old straw hat was
much too shabby for Brighton and would I get her some stuff, oxalic
acid, and let her clean it up for me. That sort of little trifle. As a
matter of fact she made such a shocking mess of the hat that I hardly
liked to wear it. Couldn't hurt her feelings, though. Chucked it into
the sea when I got here and bought this one. Make a funny story for her
when I get back about how it blew off. That's the sort of life we lead
together, Hapgood.