George answered solemnly and sharply: 

“Yes, sir.”

The Major weakly cried: 

“Hall!”

“Yessir!” The soldier-conductor came to attention.

“Did you tell him to go to Harrods first?”

“Yessir!”

“I think we might go and sit on the top,” said the Major.  “It’s a nice afternoon.”

So the two officers went and sat on the top of the motor-bus.  The Major gossiped with soothing tranquillity.  He said that he was a pianoforte manufacturer; his father, from whom he had inherited, had traded under a German name because people preferred German pianos to English; he now regretted this piece of astuteness on the part of his father; he was trying to sell his business—­he had had enough of it.

“Hi!  You!” he called, standing up quite unexpectedly and leaning over the front of the bus to hail the driver.  “Hi!  You!” But the driver did not hear, and the bus drove forward like fate.  The Major, who had hitherto seemed to be exempt from the general perturbation of Wimbledon troops, suddenly showed excitement.  “We must stop this bus somehow!  Why the devil doesn’t he stop?  I’ve forgotten the rope-shop.”

“I’ll stop it, sir,” said George, maintaining an admirable presence of mind in the crisis, and he rose and pushed down the knob of the signal-rod at the back of the bus.  The bus did actually stop.

“Ah!” murmured the Major, calmed.

The soldier raced upstairs.

“Hall!”

“Yessir.”

“Do you know a rope and string shop near the Granville Theatre of Varieties at Walham Green?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, there is one.  Tell him to stop at the Granville.”

“Yessir.”

The Major resumed his bland conversation.  At Putney they saw the first contents-bill of the afternoon papers.

“How do you think things are going, sir?” George asked.

“It’s very difficult to say,” answered the Major.  “This Mons business is serious.”

“Yes, sir.”

The discovery of the rope-shop involved a policeman’s aid.  When the rope had been purchased and new silver brought forth from the bag, and the receipt made out, and the item struck off and the amount entered, and the bus had started again, George perceived that he would soon be passing the end of Elm Park Gardens.  Dared he ask the Major to deflect the bus into Elm Park Road so that he might obtain news of Lois?  He dared not.  The scheme, simple and feasible enough, was nevertheless unthinkable.  The bus, with ‘Liverpool Street’ inscribed on its forehead, rolled its straight inevitable course along Fulham Road, pursued by the disappointed glances of gesturing wayfarers who wanted it to take them to Liverpool Street.

After about two hours of fine confused shopping the Major stopped his bus at a Tube station in the north of London.

“I mustn’t forget my pens,” said he.  “I have to spend three-quarters of my time mewed up in the office, and I don’t grumble; but I’m very particular about nibs, and if I don’t have my own I cannot work.  It’s useless to expect it.”