THE V.C.

My cousin Agatha has been a bad correspondent ever since she
married my old friend, George Thimblewell, which means for the past
five-and-twenty years, so in ordinary circumstances I do not expect
more from her than a "hasty line" to tell me how the youngsters are
doing (George, of course, never writes at all). But I must say I was
surprised and not a little hurt when, in the skimpy margin of a letter
dealing mainly with the difficulty of devising breakfast-dishes, she
scribbled in the most casual manner conceivable, "George has got the
V.C. at last."

George, my dear old school-chum, with the V.C., and his wife tells me
of it as casually as if it had been a gumboil! I sat with her letter
before me and looked back through the years, seeing us two--George
and myself--as we were long before Agatha even knew him. Had I not
fostered the yearning for heroic deeds in his young bosom? Was it not
possible, nay probable, that the influence of his boyhood's companion
had helped to mould his character and prepare it for this glorious if
belated achievement? Upon my word it seemed to me that I myself might
well take a certain amount of credit for that decoration. And here
was his wife mentioning it as though she scarcely expected me to be
interested. Never a date, never a detail.

I was so ruffled that I decided, since she vouchsafed no information,
to ask for none, as became a man with proper pride. I adopted a
semi-jocular vein to meet the case.

"I have known your V.C. longer than you have, Agatha," I wrote, "and
am as pleased and proud as you can be. The strong silent type--you can