Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/345

 never, to be sure, had condemned man less cause for complaint. His dietary was on the traditional scale; excellent meals were brought to the spare room. There was the usual sound fare for dinner, including the inevitable cold apple-pie with cloves in it, and a long-glass of beer because Jan's exalted place in the house entitled him (in those unregenerate days) to two ordinary glasses. Morgan, at any rate, could not know what he was there for! Jan was wondering whether it was enough to make him sleepy after his wretched night, and so kill an hour of this more wretched day, when the door burst open without preliminary knock, and Carpenter stood wheezing on the other side of the bed. His high shoulders heaved. His rather unhealthy face looked grotesquely intense and agonised. It was plain at a glance that old Chips knew something.

"Oh, Jan!" he cried. "What did you do it for?" "That's my business. Who sent you here?"

"I got leave from Heriot."

"Very good of you, I'm sure!"

"That wasn't why I came," said Chips, braced though stung by this reception. He had shut the door behind him. He walked round the bed with the extremely determined air of one in whom determination was not a habit.

"Well, why did you come?" inquired Jan, though he was beginning to guess.

"You did a thing I couldn't have believed you'd do!"

"Many things, it seems."

"I'm only thinking of one. The others don't concern me. You went into my locker and—and broke into the house money-box!"

"I left you something worth five times as much, and I owned what I'd done in black and white."