"And I can't," the Colonel said regretfully. "I must go down to Balham
and see poor Carlo Mallini I hear he's very queer."

The Colonel loved pool, and he hated a sick-room. The click of the
billiard balls reached him as he descended the stairs, but he only sighed
and set out manfully for Charing Cross. On the way he entered a
fruiterer's shop and inquired the price of grapes. They were more than he
expected, and he counted out the contents of his trousers pockets before
purchasing.

"A little short of change," he remarked cheerfully. "Yes! all right, I'll
take them."

He marched out, swinging a paper bag between his fingers, travelled third
class to Balham, and sat for a couple of hours with the invalid whom he
had come to see, a lonely Italian musician, to whom his coming meant more
than all the medicine his doctor could prescribe. He talked to him
glowingly of the success of his recent concert (more than a score of the
tickets sold had been paid for secretly by the Colonel himself and his
friends), prophesied great things for the future, and laughed away all
the poor fellow's fears as to his condition. There were tears in his eyes
as he walked to the station, for he had visited too many sick-beds to
have much faith in his own cheerful words, and all the way back to London
he was engaged in thinking out the best means of getting the musician
sent back to his own country, Arrived at Charing Cross, he looked
longingly towards the club, and ruefully at the contents of his pocket.
Then with a sigh he turned into a little restaurant and dined for
eighteen-pence.