the chap I'd seen going out had just served them
on him. They were divorce papers. The citation and petition papers that
have to be served personally. Divorce papers. His wife had instituted
divorce proceedings against him. Naming the girl, Effie.

"Yes, you can whistle....

"You can whistle. I couldn't. I had too much to do. He was knocked out.
Right out. I got him up to his room. Tried to stuff a drink into him.
Couldn't. Stuffed it into myself. Two. Wanted them pretty badly.

"Well--I tell you. It was pretty awful. He sat on the bed with the
papers in his hand, gibbering. Just gibbering. No other word for it. Was
his wife mad? Was she crazy? Had she gone out of her mind? He to be
guilty of a thing like that? He capable of a beastly thing like that?
She to believe, _she_ to believe he was that? His wife? Mabel? Was it
possible? A vile, hideous, sordid intrigue with a girl employed in his
own house? Effie! His wife to believe that? An unspeakable, beastly
thing like that? He tried to show me with his finger the words on the
paper. His finger shaking all over the thing. 'Hapgood, Hapgood, do you
see this vile, obscene word here? I guilty of that? My wife, Mabel,
think me capable of that? Do you see what they call me, Hapgood? What
they call me by implication, what my wife, Mabel, thinks I am, what I am
to be pointed at and called? Adulterer! Adulterer! My God, my God,
adulterer! The word makes me sick. The very word is like poison in my
mouth. And I am to swallow it. It is to be me, me, my name, my title, my
brand. Adulterer! Adulterer!'

"I tell you, old man ... I tell you....

"I managed to get him talking about the practical side of it. That is I
managed to make him listen while I talked. I told him the shop of the
business. Told him that these papers had to be served on him personally,
as they had been, and on the girl, too. I said I guessed that the
solicitor's clerk I'd seen going out had been down to Penny Green the
previous day or the day before and served them on Effie and got his
address from her. I told him the first step was that within eight days
he had to put in an appearance at the Probate and Divorce Registry and
enter a defence--just intimate that he intended to defend the action,
d'you see? And that the girl would have to too. After that no doubt he'd
instruct solicitors, and that of course I'd be glad to take on the job
for him.

"Well, of all this jargon--me being mighty glad to have anything t