To
some men this would have been an impossible moment--not so to Tiddy,
who, if he hadn't been first a plumber and then a soldier, would have
made an inimitable journalist.
So he sat down as best he could with all that he carried, and
extracted a letter-case from an inside pocket. It was a recent gift
from the minister of his parish, who knew and shared Tiddy's weakness
for the pen, and it filled his soul with joy. He fingered the thin
sheets of writing-paper lovingly, as a musician touches the strings,
and thoughtfully sucked the indelible pencil which Mrs. Tiddy had
bought for him as a parting present when she said good-bye to him at
the bookstall.
"Dearest Wife," he began. Then at a shout he hastily drew in his feet
as a man dashed past him with a heavy burden. "I nearly got it in the
neck a minute ago," he wrote, "but I'm all right, and this is a fine
place if it wasn't for the noise. They never seem to stop screeching
and the smoke is fair awful, and as soon as you think everything is
quiet another comes.
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