"Where on earth do you get your knowledge of artillery?"

Septimus dreamed through the mists of memory.

"A nurse I once had married a bombardier," said he.

Wiggleswick entered with the haddock and other breakfast appurtenances, and
while Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and looked
through the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains drawn,
the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himself
comfortably before the fire.

"I'm not in the way, am I?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant it
was. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge--and
then they didn't come often, except to rag."

"What did they do?"

Septimus narrated the burnt umbrella episode and other social experiences.

"So that when a man comes to see me who does not throw my things about, he
is doubly welcome," he explained. "Besides," he added, after a drink of
coffee, "we said something in Monte Carlo about being friends."

"We did," said Sypher, "and I'm glad you've not forgotten it. I'm so much
the Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as to
the individual."