"Been thinking of retiring to the country, but I doubt I could stick it after all the excitement we've been through. I expect I'll stay on at the Albany. Lots of things happening about one, you know, keep a chap young." * * * * * I laughed to myself at the thought of the staid old-fashioned Albany being a bee-hive of activity, but said nothing. John went on. "You, Alec, what will you do?" "Huh? Me? Dunno," said Alec blankly. "Haven't cogitated on it." "Me neither," said Geoff. "Marion and Will will marry, of course," said the Colonel, as though that accounted for us forever, and no question about it. "And you, sir," he said to Arold, making that worthy leap in his chair, "what do you intend doing? You're a fairly well-to-do man now." "Ah, yes, thanks to you gents! As generous and kindly a lot o' toffs--that is to say, gentlemen--as you could arsk for. Me? I'm going over the border. Scotland, that's the ticket for Arold Smiff; nice little village, cozy house, new name, and plenty of gin--welp, anyway, I'm going to Scotland. Never meet nobody there who'd know me, and that's 'ow I wants it after the killings we done down at that there cawstle. Some of the blokes I 'ad to enlist ain't what you'd call above thinkin' of blackmail, to put it straight out. Course they don't know you, but they knows Arold Smiff. Me for the heather!" "What did you think of the fight?" I asked him. "How did you explain it to them?" "Hexplyne? To them barst--them blokes? I guv 'em fifteen quid apiece and all the loot they could find. What else 'ld they be wanting?" He grinned. "I might have cawst a few 'ints, such as that we was involved in a political move; the boys is hell on political moves. Maybe I mentioned the Sinn Feiners, careless-lyke. They drawed their own conclusions." He squinted into his cup. "I think I shall call meself Jock MacSmiff," he said meditatively. "Ar, that's a good Scotch name. Maybe I'll even give up the gin. Take Scotch whisky instead, I mean. More patriotic, lyke." "You'll be able to afford it, old chap, should you live to be a hundred," I told him. "It was nearly all your doing, yours and Geoff's, that we won our fight." The waiter brought a bottle of Piper Heidsieck '43. The Colonel stood up to propose the first toast. "Gentlemen and Marion, I give you ex-Sergeant Henry Johnson. There is only one thing we can say of him: greater love hath no man, that a man lay down his life for his friends." * * * * * We drank standing. The waiter popped up with a second bottle. We resumed our seats, and Alec said, "The next is mine. I drink to the good green earth, and the race of men who live on it. Maybe they don't go about slopping over with gratitude for its beauty, but I think they appreciate it just the same, and I'm damned glad we saved it for 'em!"