“Great luck,” he said, “running into you like this. I don’t see a single other man I know in the whole crowd. And any way I particularly wanted to talk to you. I’ve got a story to tell you.” We secured a corner and two comfortable chairs. I lit a pipe and waited. Daintree is a wonderful man for picking up stories. The most unusual things happen to him and he gets mixed up in far more adventures than anyone else I know. And he likes telling stories. Usually, the men who have stories to tell will not talk, and the men who like talking have nothing interesting to tell. Daintree is exceptional. “What is it this time?” I asked. “What journalists call a ‘sob story,’ or is it meant to be humorous?” “I should call it a kind of joke,” said Daintree; “but my wife says it’s the most pathetic thing she’s ever heard. It makes her cry even to think of it You can take it either way. I’ll be interested to see how you do take it. I was thinking of writing it to you, ‘for your information and necessary action, please.’ My wife wanted me to, but it’s too long for a letter. Besides, I don’t see what you or anyone else could possibly do in the matter. You may give advice--that’s what my wife expects of you--but there’s really no advice to give. However, you can tell me how it strikes you. That’s what I want to know, whether you agree with my wife or with me. You know Simcox, don’t you, or do you? I forget.” “Simcox?” I said. “Is that a tall, cadaverous man in the Wessex? Rather mournful looking?” “That’s the man. Came home from a remote corner of the Argentine, or somewhere like that, early in the war, and got a commission. He’s a captain now.” “I met him,” I said, “down Albert way, shortly before the push last year. I can’t say I knew him. He seemed to me rather a difficult kind of man to know.” “So my wife says,” said Daintree. “He’s older than most of us, for one thing, and has spent twenty years all by himself herding sheep or branding bullocks, or whatever it is they do out in those places. Naturally he’d rather lost touch with life at home and found it difficult to fit himself in; especially with a lot of boys straight from the ‘Varsities or school. They were mostly boys in his battalion. Anyhow, he seems to have been a bit morose, but he did his job all right in the regiment and was recommended for the M.C.. He got knocked out in the Somme push and jolly nearly lost a leg. They saved it in the end and sent him down to my place to convalesce.” Daintree owns a very nice place in the Midlands. In the old days it was one of the pleasantest houses I know to stay in. Daintree himself was a capital host and his wife is a charming woman. The house is a convalescent home for officers now, and Mrs. Daintree, with the help of three nurses, runs it. Daintree pretends to regard this as a grievance, and says it was all his wife’s doing, though he was just as keen on the place as she was.