England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Social aspects -- England -- Fiction
When General Campion had come up to rejoin his sister he, Tietjens, had
stopped only two days. The coolness between the two of them remained; it
was the first time they had met, except in Court, after the accident. . . .
For Mrs. Wannop, with grim determination, had sued the General for
the loss of her horse. It had lived all right--but it was only fit to
draw a lawn-mower for cricket pitches. . . . Mrs. Wannop, then, had gone
bald-headed for the General, partly because she wanted the money, partly
because she wanted a public reason for breaking with the Sandbachs. The
general had been equally obstinate and had undoubtedly perjured himself
in Court: not the best, not the most honourable, the most benevolent man
in the world would not turn oppressor of the widow and orphan when his
efficiency as a chauffeur was impugned or the fact brought to light that
at a very dangerous turning he hadn't sounded his horn. Tietjens had
sworn that he hadn't: the General that he had. There _could_ not be any
question of doubt, for the horn was a beastly thing that made a
prolonged noise like that of a terrified peacock. . . . So Tietjens had
not, till the end of that July, met the General again. It had been quite
a proper thing for gentlemen to quarrel over and was quite convenient,
though it had cost the General fifty pounds for the horse and, of
course, a good bit over for costs. Lady Claudine had refused to
interfere in the matter: she was privately of opinion that the General
_hadn't_ sounded his horn, but the General was both a passionately
devoted and explosive brother. She had remained closely intimate with
Sylvia, mildly cordial with Tietjens and had continued to ask the
Wannops to such of her garden parties as the General did not attend. She
was also very friendly with Mrs. Duchemin.
Tietjens and the General had met with the restrained cordiality of
English gentlemen who had some years before accused each other of
perjury in a motor accident. On the second morning a violent quarrel had
broken out between them on the subject of whether the General had or
hadn't sounded his horn. The General had ended up by shouting . . .
really shouting:
"By God! If I ever get you under my command. . . ."
Tietjens remembered that he had quoted and given the number of a
succinct paragraph in King's Regs, dealing with the fate of general or
higher field officers who gave their subordinates bad confidential
reports because of private quarrels. The General had exploded into
noises that ended in laughter.
"What a rag-bag of a mind you have, Chrissie!" he said. "What's King's
Regs, to you? And how do you know it's paragraph 66 or whatever you say
it is? I don't." He added more seriously: "_What_ a fellow you are for
getting into obscure rows! What in the world do you do it for?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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