onsiderably comforted by this description of his coadjutor.

"You'll occupy the station assigned to you, my man," said Mr. Bennett,
with an admirable burlesque of the military manner. "The front is
wherever a soldier is ordered to be--a fine saying of Lord Kitchener's!
Remember it, Sergeant!"

"Yes, sir," said the Sergeant, grinning still.

He found Mr. Bennett on the whole amusing company, though occasionally
rather alarming; for instance, there seemed to him to be no particular
reason for dragging in Neddy's predilection for murder; though, of
course, a man of his inches and weight might commit murder through some
trifling and pardonable miscalculation of force. "Same as if that Captain
Naylor hit you!" the Sergeant reflected, as he finished the ample portion
of rum with which the conversation had been lightened. He felt pleasantly
muzzy, and saw Mr. Bennett's cleancut features rather blurred in
outline. However, the sandy wig and red mustache which that gentleman
wore--in his character as a Boxing Day excursionist--were still salient
features even to his eyes. Anybody in the room would have been able to
swear to them.

Thus the date of the attack was settled and, if only it had been adhered
to, things might have fallen out differently between Doctor Mary and Mr.
Beaumaroy. Events would probably have relieved Mary from the necessity of
presenting her ultimatum, and she might never have heard that
illuminating word "Morocco." But big Neddy the Shover--as his intimate
friends were wont to call him--was a man of pleasure as well as of
business; he was not a bloke in an office; he liked an ample Christmas
vacation and was now taking one with a party of friends at Brighton--all
tip-toppers who did the thing in style and spent their money (which was
not their money) lavishly. From the attraction of this company--not
composed of gentlemen only--Neddy refused to be separated. Mr. Bennett,
who was on thorns at the delay, could take it or leave it at that; in
any case the job was, in Neddy's opinion (which he expressed with that
massive but good-humored scorn which is an appanage of very large men), a
leap in the dark, a pig in a poke, blind hookey; for who really knew how
much of the stuff the old blighter and his pal had contrived to shift
down to the Cottage in the old brown bag. Sometimes it looked light,
sometimes it looked heavy; sometimes perhaps it was full of bricks!

In this mood Neddy had to be humored, even thou