Great Britain -- History -- George V, 1910-1936 -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
The adjutant here said that Colour-Sergeant Morgan of their orderly room
wanted a word with Tietjens. Tietjens said he hoped to goodness that
Morgan had some money for him! The adjutant said he understood that
Morgan had unearthed quite a little money that ought to have been paid
to Tietjens by his agents and hadn't.
Colour-Sergeant Morgan was the regimental magician with figures.
Inordinately tall and thin, his body, whilst his eyes peered into
distant columns of cyphers, appeared to be always parallel with the
surface of his table and, as he always answered the several officers
whom he benefited without raising his head, his face was very little
known to his superiors. He was, however, in appearance a very ordinary,
thin, N.C.O. whose spidery legs, when very rarely he appeared on a
parade, had the air of running away with him as a race-horse might do.
He told Tietjens that, pursuant to his instructions and the A.C.P. i 96
b that Tietjens had signed, he had ascertained that command pay at the
rate of two guineas a day and supplementary fuel and light allowance at
the rate of 6_s_. 8_d_. was being paid weekly by the Paymaster-General's
Department to his, Tietjens', account at his agents'. He suggested that
Tietjens should write to his agents that if they did not immediately pay
to his account the sum of £194 13_s_. 4 _d_., by them received from the
Paymaster's Department, he would proceed against the Crown by Petition
of Right. And he strongly recommended Tietjens to draw a cheque on his
own bank for the whole of the money because, if by any chance the agents
had not paid the money in, he could sue them for damages and get them
cast in several thousand pounds. And serve the devils right. They must
have a million or so in hand in unpaid command and detention allowances
due to officers. He only wished he could advertise in the papers
offering to recover unpaid sums due by agents. He added that he had a
nice little computation as to variations in the course of Gunter's
Second Comet that he would like to ask Tietjen's advice about one of
these days. The colour-sergeant was an impassioned amateur astronomer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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