'
"'As how?' I asked, shaking him by the hand.
"'Why, we've been for weeks holding an inquiry on this blessed gun,
and the question is whether or not a lot more of them are to be made.
You know what an opinionated beast Old Grouch is. Well, my boy, you
have corroborated his opinion of the gun in every detail. He is such a
brow-beating, tyrannical brute that the rest of the Committee would
rather like to go against him if they dared, but you have put a spoke
in their wheel. Why, Sir John never said "thank you" to a human being
since he was born until twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds after
eleven this morning, as you would have put it,' and at the time of
writing this letter this surmise of Billy's appears to be justified,
for the tape in the club just now announced that the Committee has
unanimously decided in favor of the gun, and adds that this is
regarded as a triumph for the chairman, Admiral Sir John Pendergest,
with various letters after his name.
"Dear Miss Amhurst, this letter, as I feared, has turned out
intolerably long, and like our first conversation, it is all about
myself. But then, you see, you are the only one on the other side of
the water to whom I have confided my selfish worries, and I believe
you to be so kind-hearted that I am sure you will not censure me for
this once exceeding the limits of friendly correspondence. Having been
deeply depressed during all the previous long days, the sudden
reaction urges me to go out into Pall Mall, fling my cap in the air,
and whoop, which action is quite evidently a remnant of my former
cow-boy aspirations.
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