despatched him with the coppers.

'I have got four new tyres on my car,' I began impressively.

'Yes,' said Mr. Pyecroft. 'You have, and I _will_ say'--he patted my
car's bonnet--'you earned 'em.'

'I want to know why--,' I went on.

'Quite justifiable. You haven't noticed anything in the papers, have
you?'

'I've only just landed. I haven't seen a paper for weeks.'

'Then you can lend me a virgin ear. There's been a scandal in the
Junior Service--the Army, I believe they call 'em.'

A bag of coffee-beans pitched on the counter. 'Roast that,' said the
uncle from within.

Pyecroft rigged a small coffee-roaster, while I took down the shutters,
and sold a young lady in curl-papers two bunches of mixed greens and one
soft orange.

'Sickly stuff to handle on an empty stomach, ain't it?' said Pyecroft.

'What about my new tyres?' I insisted.

'Oh, any amount. But the question is'--he looked at me steadily--'is
this what you might call a court-martial or a post-mortem inquiry?'

'Strictly a post-mortem,' said I.

'That being so,' said Pyecroft, 'we can rapidly arrive at facts. Last
Thursday--the shutters go behind those baskets--last Thursday at five
bells in the forenoon watch, otherwise ten-thirty A.M., your Mr. Leggatt
was discovered on Westminster Bridge laying his course for the Old
Kent Road.'

'But that doesn't lead to Southampton,' I interrupted.

'Then perhaps he was swinging the car for compasses. Be that as it may,
we found him in that latitude, simultaneous as Jules and me was _ong
route_ for Waterloo to rejoin our respective ships--or Navies I should
say. Jules was a _permissionaire_, which meant being on leaf, same as
me, from a French cassowary-cruiser at Portsmouth. A party of her trusty
and well-beloved petty officers 'ad been seeing London, chaperoned by
the R.C. Chaplain. Jules 'ad detached himself from the squadron and was
cruisin' on his own when I joined him, in company of copious
lady-friends. _But_, mark you, your Mr. Leggatt drew the line at the
girls. Loud and long he drew it.'

'I'm glad of that,' I said.

'You may be. He adopted the puristical formation from the first. "Yes,"
he said, when we was annealing him at--but you wouldn't know the pub--"I
_am_ going to Southampton," he says, "and I'll stretch a point to go
_via_ Portsmouth; _but_," says he, "seeing what sort of one hell of a
time invariably trarnspires when we cruise together, Mr. Pyecroft, I do
_not_ feel myself just