Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/391

 "Haven't a match, sir, have you?"

There—spoke the voice of a man who had known other days, and Kit produced a matchbox, and observed the patched boots, and the frayed trousers, and the greasy cuffs, and collar of the old black tail coat. The man was sucking hard at the pipe. His chin was all grey stubble, his nose and cheeks a network of little blood vessels.

"Much obliged, sir."

He handed back the matches, and smiled a yellow, broken-toothed smile at the fortunate one.

"Worth being alive—a day like this."

"It is."

"Even me. Dry feet,—and no draught under what you might call by courtesy a shirt. Nice bit of colour that,—ain't it?"

He indicated the brown and blue house with the stem of his pipe.

"Used to do a little with the brushes—myself—once, till I started paintin' my nose. Hee, hee!"

He chuckled, and Kit felt the sunlight, and a happy man's human compassion. His hand disappeared into a trouser pocket at the very moment that he saw a particular figure floating on April feet down the Walk of the Queen. A surreptitious hand passed two half-crowns to a consenting and ready paw.

Kit stood up. So did the greasy one.

"Much obliged. Don't you mind me. The lady can have my seat."

He gave Kit a friendly, human leer, and with a considering and appreciative glance at Kit's lady, he raised his ancient bowler hat and mooched off with a contemptuous stare at the two Germans. Honeymooners! Boch honeymooners! Their lingo still smelt of that old and almost forgotten war. What the hell were they doing in England anyway? Made him think of the prison camp he had inhabited, and the German women who used to stand and mock at him through the wire fencing. He turned about for a moment to observe the coming together of the other two. English people, his people! By Jove, some girl too; moved as though corsets—and all tight constraints—were things of the past! The willowy, audacious, quick-eyed type, black and white. Damn it, he had always admired