I made him up a bed in my smoking-room and sought my own couch, more cheerful

than I had been for the past month. Things did happen occasionally, even in this

God-forgotten metropolis.

 

I woke next morning to hear my man, Paddock, making the deuce of a row at the

smoking-room door. Paddock was a fellow I had done a good turn to out on the

Selakwe, and I had inspanned him as my servant as soon as I got to England. He

had about as much gift of the gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at

valeting, but I knew I could count on his loyalty.

 

“Stop that row, Paddock,” I said. “There’s a friend of mine, Captain—Captain” (I

couldn’t remember the name) “dossing down in there.

 

Get breakfast for two and then come and speak to me.”

 

I told Paddock a fine story about how my friend was a great swell, with his

nerves pretty bad from overwork, who wanted absolute rest and stillness. Nobody

had got to know he was here, or he would be besieged by communications from the

India Office and the Prime Minister and his cure would be ruined. I am bound to

say Scudder played up splendidly when he came to breakfast. He fixed Paddock

with his eyeglass, just like a British officer, asked him about the Boer War,

and slung out at me a lot of stuff about imaginary pals. Paddock couldn’t learn

to call me “sir’, but he “sirred’ Scudder as if his life depended on it.