“It can’t be much,” I reassured her, “or you would have heard again.  And this news will act like a sovereign remedy.”

She patted the back of my hand with her plump palm.  “You’re always so sympathetic and comforting.”

“I’m an old soldier, like Leonard,” said I, “and never meet trouble halfway.”

At lunch, the old lady insisted on opening a bottle of champagne, a Veuve Clicquot which Leonard loved, in honour of the glorious occasion.  We could not drink to the hero’s health in any meaner vintage, although she swore that a teaspoonful meant death to her, and I protested that a confession of champagne to my medical adviser meant a dog’s rating.  We each, conscience-bound, put up the tips of our fingers to the glasses as soon as Mary had filled them with froth, and solemnly drank the toast in the eighth of an inch residuum.  But by some freakish chance or the other, there was nothing left in that quart bottle by the time Mary cleared the table for dessert.  And to tell the honest truth, I don’t think the health of either my hostess or myself was a penny the worse.  Let no man despise generous wine.  Treated with due reverence it is a great loosener of human sympathy.

Generous ale similarly treated produces the same effect.  Marigold, driving me home, cocked a luminous eye on me and said: 

“Begging your pardon, sir, would you mind very much if I broke the neck of that there Gedge?”

“You would be aiding the good cause,” said I, “but I should deplore the hanging of an old friend.  What has Gedge been doing?”

Marigold sounded his horn and slowed down round a bend, and, as soon as he got into a straight road, he replied.

“I m not going to say, sir, if I may take the liberty, that I was ever sweet on Colonel Boyce.  People affect you in different ways.  You either like ’em or you don’t like ’em.  You can’t tell why.  And a Sergeant, being, as you may say, a human being, has as much right to his private feelings regarding a Colonel as any officer.”

“Undoubtedly,” said I.

“Well, sir, I never thought Colonel Boyce was true metal.  But I take it all back—­every bit of it.”

“For God’s sake,” I cried, stretching out a foolish but instinctive hand to the wheel, “for God’s sake, control your emotions, or you’ll be landing us in the ditch.”

“That’s all right, sir,” he replied, steering a straight course.  “She’s a bit skittish at times.  I was saying as how I did the Colonel an injustice.  I’m very sorry.  No man who wasn’t steel all through ever got the V.C.  They don’t chuck it around on blighters.”

“That’s all very interesting and commendable,” said I, “but what has it to do with Gedge?”

“He has been slandering the Colonel something dreadful the last few months, sneering at him, saying nothing definite, but insinuatingly taking away his character.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Well, he tells one man that the Colonel’s a drunkard, another that it’s women, another that he gambles and doesn’t pay, another that he pays the newspapers to put in all these things about him, while all the time in France he’s in a blue funk hiding in his dugout.”