When he came back to London he would give an hour a
week to them and do them on his head. Pretty soft! It seemed to me that
the marriage was going to be a success.
One gets out of touch with people when they marry. I am not much on the
social-call game, and for nearly six months I don't suppose I saw
Archie more than twice or three times. When I did, he appeared sound in
wind and limb, and reported that married life was all to the velvet,
and that he regarded bachelors like myself as so many excrescences on
the social system. He compared me, if I remember rightly, to a wart,
and advocated drastic treatment.
It was perhaps seven months after he had told Eunice that he endowed
her with all his worldly goods--she not suspecting what the parcel
contained--that he came to me unexpectedly one afternoon with a face so
long and sick-looking that my finger was on the button and I was
ordering brandy and soda before he had time to speak.
"Reggie," he said, "an awful thing has happened. Have you seen the
paper today?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Did you read the Stock Exchange news? Did you see that some lunatic
has been jumping around with a club and hammering the stuffing out of
B. and O. P.? This afternoon they are worth practically nothing.
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