brightened the autumnal countryside; how, unless the reader were an

amateur himself, describe the heights of idiotic vanity to which

the carrier climbed? One significant fact shall paint the situation:

thenceforth it was Harker who played, and the military gentleman

listened and approved.

As he listened, however, he did not forget the habit of soldierly

precaution, looking both behind and before. He looked behind and

computed the value of the carrier's load, divining the contents of the

brown-paper parcels and the portly hamper, and briefly setting down the

grand piano in the brand-new piano-case as 'difficult to get rid of'.

He looked before, and spied at the corner of the green lane a little

country public-house embowered in roses. 'I'll have a shy at it,'

concluded the military gentleman, and roundly proposed a glass. 'Well,

I'm not a drinking man,' said Harker.

'Look here, now,' cut in the other, 'I'll tell you who I am: I'm

Colour-Sergeant Brand of the Blankth. That'll tell you if I'm a drinking

man or not.' It might and it might not, thus a Greek chorus would have

intervened, and gone on to point out how very far it fell short of

telling why the sergeant was tramping a country lane in tatters; or even

to argue that he must have pretermitted some while ago his labours for

the general defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his attention

to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present; and the man of war went

on to contend that drinking was one thing and a friendly glass another.

203

The Wrong Box