“Absolutely not!” agreed Archie, cordially. “It’s all a mistake, old companion, as I was trying to–”
“Cut it out!”
“Ob, right-o!”
“You’ve seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me you see any resemblance?”
“If ye plaze, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
“Well?”
“We thought he’d bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn’t be recognised.”
“You’re a fool!” said the captain.
“Yes, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
“So are you, Donahue.”
“Yes, sorr.”
Archie’s respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He seemed to be able to take years off the lives of these massive blighters with a word. It was like the stories you read about lion- tamers. Archie did not despair of seeing Officer Donahue and his old college chum Cassidy eventually jumping through hoops.
“Who are you?” demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
“Well, my name is–”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, it’s rather a longish story, you know. Don’t want to bore you, and all that.”
“I’m here to listen. You can’t bore ME.”
“Dashed nice of you to put it like that,” said Archie, gratefully. “I mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know how rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the party of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go home. I mean–”
“If,” said the captain, “you’re reciting something, stop. If you’re trying to tell me what you’re doing here, make it shorter and easier.”
Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money–the modern spirit of hustle–all that sort of thing.
“Well, it was this bathing suit, you know,” he said.
“What bathing suit?”
“Mine, don’t you know, A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright and so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg. Well, the whole thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement in a diving attitude–for the cover, you know. I don’t know if you have ever done anything of that kind yourself, but it gives you a most fearful crick in the spine. However, that’s rather beside the point, I suppose–don’t know why I mentioned it. Well, this morning he was dashed late, so I went out– ”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
Archie looked at him, surprised.
“Aren’t I making it clear?”
“No.”
“Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don’t you? The jolly old bathing suit, you’ve grasped that, what?”
“No.”
“Oh, I say,” said Archie. “That’s rather a nuisance. I mean to say, the bathing suit’s what you might call the good old pivot of the whole dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover, what? You’re pretty clear on the subject of the cover?”
“What cover?”
“Why, for the magazine.”
“What magazine?”
“Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little periodicals, you know, that you see popping to and fro on the bookstalls.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the captain. He looked at Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility. “And I’ll tell you straight out I don’t like the looks of you. I believe you’re a pal of his.”
“No longer,” said Archie, firmly. “I mean to say, a chappie who makes you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in the spine, and then doesn’t turn up and leaves you biffing all over the countryside in a bathing suit–”
The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.
“Are you trying to josh me? I’ve a mind to soak you!”
“If ye plaze, sorr,” cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in chorous. In the course of their professional career they did not often hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.
“No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my thoughts–”
He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to an end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending him staggering into the inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.