OF SPECIALISED CONVERSATION 183 



future time Derry would be enlightened concern- 

 ing the Labuan trouble. Thorns understood that 

 Maitland and his wife were on their way home, 

 but he feared that he would miss Saunders, who 

 was due back at Sandakan in a month. T. A. was 

 a daddy at last. Good old T. A. We drank the 

 health of T. A. and of Mrs. T. A. and of their 

 offspring, but I never had more particular infor- 

 mation about them, and 1 cannot tell you the sex 

 of the child, because Derry wanted to know where 

 Giles was now, and Thorns thought that he was 

 still in Daru. But 1 remember that somebody 

 else had been shifted to quite another place, the 

 name of which I forget. It was, however, close 

 to another place where death had recently robbed 

 Derry and Thorns of a dear old boy they had 

 known. Poor old chap ! I wonder if he had been 

 worrying too much over the Labuan trouble. 



Our dinner at last came to an end. I had known 

 from the first that, Thorns being just off his steam- 

 boat, the Empire could by no means be avoided. 

 Nor was it. In the stalls Derry and Thorns con- 

 tinued cheerfully to converse about unknown 

 people, by their initials and nicknames. I do not 

 think they had any understanding of that which 

 was happening on the stage. They never looked 

 that way ; they never looked my way, either. 

 Yet I was close beside them. They amazed me. 



