He laid down his paper.
“You appear to be desirous of giving me some information about crops. What is it?”
“I hear they need rain.”
“Indeed?”
That concluded the small-talk. He went on reading, and I found a chair and sat down and sucked the handle of my stick. And so the long day wore on.
It may have been some two hours later, or it may have been about five minutes, when there became audible in the passage outside a strange wailing sound, as of some creature in pain. The bloke Waterbury looked up. I looked up.
The wailing came closer. It came into the room. It was Sippy, singing.
“—I love you. That’s all that I can say. I love you, I lo-o-ve you. The same old—”
He suspended the chant, not too soon for me.
“Oh, hullo!” he said.
I was amazed. The last time I had seen old Sippy, you must remember, he had had all the appearance of a man who didn’t know it was loaded. Haggard. Drawn face. Circles under the eyes. All that sort of thing. And now, not much more than twenty-four hours later, he was simply radiant. His eyes sparkled. His mobile lips were curved in a happy smile. He looked as if he had been taking as much as will cover a sixpence every morning before breakfast for years.
“Hullo, Bertie!” he said. “Hullo, Waterbury! Sorry I’m late.”