The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife by Martin Armstrong

you,’ said the lady in an undertone, ‘but did you particularly notice the gentleman who went out just now?’
    â€˜Small, clean-shaven, spectacles, blue eyes?’ asked Miss Sunningdale.
    â€˜That’s him,’ said the lady. ‘He’s my husband, and I’d be much obliged if you could tell me what he had.’
    Miss Sunningdale hesitated. She did not quite feel that she ought to tell tales about the absurd little man. He was pleasant and chatty and perfectly harmless. She liked him. At the same time she liked this large, dignified, straightforward woman: she liked her manner of speaking and the direct, unsecretive way she had asked her question. She decided to tell.
    â€˜He began with a Bass and a ham and a beef sandwich, and then he had another Bass and another ham sandwich,’ she said.
    â€˜Hm!’ said the lady grimly. ‘That explains it.’ She glanced at Miss Sunningdale. She was inclined to be critical of women of flamboyant appearance, but in the case of Miss Sunningdale she saw through the flamboyancy to a kindred spirit. Yes, she was the right sort, a sensible woman at bottom, a woman who would understand. ‘The fact is,’ she said confidentially, ‘he wants watching. Not in the matter of drink, I don’t mean,’ she hastened to explain: ‘he’s always been thoroughly steady. But he’s got to have proper meals. Now he’s been thoroughly out of sorts lately, and I’ve been wondering why: but now I know. He generally comes home, you see, and has a good hot dinner, and for a man accustomed to a hot dinner three sandwiches isn’t enough. But if I were to ask him what sort of a dinner he had had in town, do you think he’d tell me? “Sarah made a face indicatingthe hopelessness of the undertaking. ‘No, you’ve got to manage him artfully,’ she said. ‘He’s just like a child!’
    â€˜Most of them are,’ said Miss Sunningdale. ‘Won’t you take something, madam?’
    Sarah shook her head.
    â€˜I’ve got some quite decent sherry,’ said Miss Sunningdale raising her golden eyebrows in friendly persuasion.
    Sarah smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you’ll have one too.’
    Miss Sunningdale went and filled two glasses. She was unable to prevent Sarah from paying for them. ‘Yes,’ she said, resuming the theme they had started, ‘most of them are little better than kids. Of course in places like this you see all sorts and kinds, but they’re all much the same in the end. If you was to come in here, or into any public for that matter, and watch them for an hour or two, well, I assure you, you’d be surprised. Of course there’s some, like your husband, who just come in for a lunch and go when they’ve had it: but most of them comes in twos and threes and plants themselves here talking and drinking, drinking and talking—small Scotch and Splash Miss! Another Bass, Miss!—and so on, one after another till you’d think they’d be sick. And it’s not as if they were thirsty: thirst’s got nothing to do with it. It’s just a … well, a kind of formality, as you might say. And the talk! You never
heard
! And all of them as serious and important as they can be; and the more they drink the more important they get. You’d think every one of them was the Prime Minister himself. And yet if you listen for a minute, it’s all just nonsense.’
    Sarah laughed with grim amusement. ‘O, don’t I know it,’ she said. ‘They love to hear themselves talking. For instance, there’s nothing my husband likes better then getting hold of a big word. If only he can get hold of a nice big word he thinks he’s said something worth saying. And the things he says sometimes! Now only the other evening—we were speaking of his job—he said to me, as serious as can be, if you please: “The