it appeared, as I thought. I had erroneously supposed that by not being a
civilian I should get more than two courses. As it was I got less, and so
it was with a full heart and an empty stomach that I fell in for home. If
I'd known I should have kept my waterproof on for luncheon.

Do you realise how dismal a thing it is for us to be separated from our own
by a High Sea all these months and years? It ain't fair, Sir, it simply
ain't fair. In my case there is not only a wife amongst wives, but also a
son amongst sons. Now, Charles, I am the very last person to call a thing
good merely because it is my own, nor am I that kind of fool who thinks all
his geese are swans. If my son had a fault I should be the very first to
notice and call attention to it. But he has not; dispassionately and from
an entirely detached and impersonal view, I am bound to say that there is
about him an outstanding merit which at once puts him on a different level
from all others. It isn't so much his four and a half teeth I'm thinking
of, nor is it the twenty-seven overgrown and badly managed hairs which
wander about at the back of his bald head and give him the look of a
dissipated monk. It is just his intrinsic worth, clearly evidenced in
everything about him. Obviously a man of parts, he has brains, a stout
heart and an unfailing humour. Blessed with a keen perception, he delights
those who can understand him with his singularly happy and apt turn of
speech. You will, I think, accept my word as an officer and a gentleman
that he _is_ unique.

Anticipating the welcome greeting of my wife and many pleasant hours to be
spent in discussing with my son the things which matter, I put on all my
waterproofs, gave the porter a twenty-five centime piece, which he mistook
for a shilling, even as earlier on I had myself been led to mistake it for
a franc, and hastened home.