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And as they were going to stay with people apparently adequately provided with lakes and streams, there ought to be enough salmon, snipe, and waterfowl to compensate for his tutorial labours.
    No; it was by something else that Captain Cox was obscurely troubled. It had been the occasion of that odd abstraction which had led him into the little misadventure with his diary… Captain Cox, who was now walking through the square next adjoining to Sir Bernard Paxton’s, had advanced so far in his meditations when they were interrupted by the sound of rapidly running feet behind him. He glanced back in time to see a slender youth come dashing round the corner he had himself turned a minute before. ‘Hi!’ shouted the youth. ‘Hold on!’
    Captain Cox halted. That this untidy, fair-haired boy was Humphrey Paxton appeared certain, and he found it necessary positively to brace himself for the unexpected encounter. But his first impression was favourable. The lad possessed a turn of speed and ease of breathing that suggested a very fair athletic trim. Moreover, he looked Captain Cox straight in the eye. ‘Are you my new tutor?’ he asked.
    ‘I am. And I think you were at that keyhole quite long enough to know it.’
    ‘Keyhole?’ The boy appeared momentarily disconcerted. ‘Oh well, why not?’
    ‘It isn’t done. Not by our sort. A housemaid might do it because she isn’t a lady.’ Captain Cox frowned. ‘I mean, might do it if she hadn’t the feelings of a lady. You mustn’t do everything that you see young louts doing in comics.’
    ‘All right. I’ll drop it.’ Humphrey, Captain Cox reflected, appeared suitably abashed. ‘Are we going to Ireland together?’
    ‘Certainly we are. We leave at four fifty-five on Thursday. And I’ve suggested to your father that before that I’d better buy you a gun.’
    ‘A gun? I say, that was jolly decent of you.’ The boy, however dark a view he and the public-school system took of each other, appeared to possess the right articulations – which were made the more attractive in his case by a very slight lisp. Not that Captain Cox was wholly reassured as to his charge, for in the lad’s eye as it confidently met his there was an impression of remote and rapid calculation which, in one so young, was not altogether inspiring of confidence. But his total bearing was frank enough. ‘Couldn’t we,’ he asked, ‘buy it together?’
    ‘Well, perhaps we could. In fact, it mightn’t be at all a bad idea.’
    ‘What about Thursday afternoon? That’s the first time I’m free. Only I want to go to the Metrodrome at two-fifteen and see Plutonium Blonde .’
    ‘Whatever is that?’
    ‘It’s a film with an atom bomb in it. They say it’s absolutely smashing.’
    ‘It might well be that.’ And Captain Cox chuckled, pleased with this unwonted flight of wit in himself. ‘Well, I’m afraid you will have to choose.’
    The boy considered. ‘I say, couldn’t you come to Plutonium Blonde , too? It really is sticking out. We could buy the gun first, and then go to the flicks, and then straight across to the railway station. I’d have sent my things ahead.’
    ‘I think your father was intending to bring you to Euston.’
    ‘Dad can meet us at the station for the proper sort of farewells. Do come.’
    Captain Cox considered. This eagerness for his earlier society on the part of the kittle young Humphrey was distinctly gratifying, and his forebodings were beginning to dissipate themselves. ‘We could have the gun sent straight to Euston and put in the Left Luggage,’ he said. ‘And if we met at half past one–’ He made rapid calculations. ‘We could just do it. But I shall consult your father first.’
    ‘Ring him up this evening. Where do we meet?’
    ‘At Bone’s in Piccadilly for a quick snack first. And now you’d better cut along.’ Captain Cox was a great believer in the moral effect of abrupt dismissals of the young. ‘You won’t see many films in Ireland.